Legends of the tiger lion war
by Rohad
Summary: The sequal to my previos story the legend of the white lion.


**WARNING, This story was not intended to be read by children. It is a dark tale, containing adult themes. You have been warned**

Authors note - PLEASE READ!  
This is the second part to a story series based on and continuing from the original Lion king movie, A sequel to my previous story "The Legend of the White lion." THIS STORY WILL MAKE NO SENSE unless that story is read first. To any who find this story enjoyable please feel free to reprint it elsewhere whenever possible, though I will ask and or demand that it not be altered and that I be given credit for writing it. Also feel free to base other stories off what I have created, though once again I ask that you do not alter and give me credit for my original work. I would like to see how far my story will spread and what others might make of it.

Please send all questions and comments to

**Legends of the Tiger Lion war.  
**The sequel to the Legend of the White Lion.  
By Rohad.

Part one, The lonely

He bounded back and forth trying to avoid the deep dunes. A small hare an outline in the falling snow almost within his reach. The animal tried to turn and he lunged at it, his paws barely catching its back. With a roar he pulled it to him, breaking the little animal. It was his. Then the ground gave way. The delicate bank of snow shattered under his weight and a white tide enveloped him. He felt himself being drug over ice and rock as he was pulled off the cliff side. He was falling, a surreal sensation, a cascade of ice and snow all around him, Like he had become one with the falling snow. The ground seemed to rise up to meet him and he hit it with a tremendous impact. He lay on his back looking up at their ever falling snow descending upon him, the path from which had fallen not even visible. His rabbit was gone buried somewhere in the mass of snow or having fallen further down the mountain into oblivion. Slowly the realization came to him that he was done. For nine days he had been hunting in this blizzard. His fur had become riddled with ice and his paws where frost bitten. He had been cold for so long it had stopped bothering him replaced by sickly warmth that masked all other feeling. That one small rabbit had been the only sign of life he'd seen.  
"...I swear I wouldn't have eaten it."  
He whispered to the sky, praying, though he couldn't remember who he prayed too.  
"I swear I wouldn't have touched it... why couldn't you have let me have it."  
His hoarse voice becoming lost in the wind. He tried to stand but his body wouldn't move. Gazing out at the gray sky he began to dream as the snow buried him.

A cool wind whipped across the pride lands stirring the grass fields like the torrent of an angry sea. A full moon had turned the night sky a strange purple and despite the dark, huge clouds could still be seen blowing in from afar like the great beasts of old.  
" Things are moving quickly."  
" Yes."  
"You know what you must do?"  
" I will not fail."  
"It will be an odd place for you. You will not like it. It is a land of the sun there are no shadows their."  
" By tomorrow their will be one."

Her father had been a rouge lion, her mother had left her pride high in the north lands to be with him. They had both been the best of parents and had loved their only child. The cub ran alone through the open fields. Yesterday her world had been fine, now her parents where dead and she was alone and frightened.  
Running without looking where she was going she tripped over him, lying in the tall grass, taking a nap to evade the heat of the mid day. She screamed, the cheetah jumping up startled.  
"What the..." He started seeing the little lionesses darting away into the grass. She saw a blur around her and realized she wasn't running any more, the spotted cat holding her up off the ground by the scruff of her neck.  
"Please...Let me go." She demanded, trying in vain to scratch him.  
"Calm down." He instructed, an annoyed look on his face. " What are you doing out here...are you alone?"  
"Let me go..."  
" Are you alone?"  
" Let me go!"  
" All right I'll let you go, but then will you tell me what your doing out here?" She nodded and was put back on her feet.  
"...well are you alone?" The cheetah asked her, his paw beginning to tap nervously against the ground.  
"Yes" she said begging to cry slightly. His head cocked curiously studying the cub.  
"Dangerous place out here, cubs shouldn't be wandering it alone. Where are your parents?"  
"Their dead."  
" ...dead?" He asked.  
"Tigers came last night, A lot of them. Mom was screaming and Father told me to go hide in the grass and when I came back they where both dead." She said crying some more. The cheetah awkwardly patted her head.  
"Tigers? Did they come this way?"  
" I didn't see where they went." The spotted cat looked down sympathetically at the frightened cub.  
"You know my parents where killed when I was a cub too,...I don't know how to comfort you I'm afraid, no one ever comforted me so I don't know how its done." He said apologetically.  
"...but I can't let you continue wandering alone through the outlands. Not with tigers about. Why don't you come with me." Still crying the cub was suddenly hugging his leg, making him even more uncomfortable.  
"I have a meeting to make in the pride lands, think you can keep up?" He said gently prying free from her embrace. She nodded enthusiastically, happy for company even if it was a stranger's.  
"Yes! Thank you! I'll keep up I promise."  
He nodded.  
" Good. Right now we can rest for a little longer. Suns still high and you look tired. I was in the middle of a nap."  
"I'm sorry." The little cub said worriedly.  
" ...Its all right." He stretched and laid back down in the soft grass.  
" Just find a comfortable spot and..." The cub laid down against him. He faked a smile hiding a grimace.  
" Little one...I don't really like to be touched..."  
She was already asleep, tears still on her face. "All right whatever."

Simba could do nothing but watch her. She was beautiful. A young lioness, with eyes a perfect blue and a pelt an exotic brownish gold like the grass of the northern fields. Her body was strong and muscular but at the same time sleek and very feminine. She sat next to him, her paws draped around his neck skillfully massaging his ear with her tongue. He could feel her soft fur his as she rubbed against him. He let his paw run down her back a sensation like petting warm silk. Her mussel moved to his begging for a kiss. He tired to lick her cheek, but her tongue instantly met his and she locked mouths with him in a deep open mouth kiss. Quickly she climbed into his lap. Grabbing his paw she set it between her thighs, laying back so she could spread her legs for him. The gorgeous lioness offering herself completely to his whims. Uncontrollably his paw found her slit. She was soaking wet and radiated heat like her body was on fire. Her long tongue still expertly playing inside his mouth creating incredible sensations. He wanted her, and she was very willing. It had been a long time since he had mated. It was the sole focus of his concentration, fucking this wanton young lioness sprawled out across him. At least until the horrible sensation of wisdom at the wrong time impeded his simpler more pleasant thoughts. She wasn't her. Sex was all he wanted from this lionesses. It was just lust soon to fade and it would never be anything more. The part of him that remembered love still lived and hoped for her return. It would not let him betray her for sex.  
He stood suddenly throwing her from his lap. She rolled to her feet with a look of surprise. Which quickly changed, as she realized that she had been rejected, to a look of absolute evil directed at him. Simba saw horrible thing visualized in her pretty eyes. She grumbled something he couldn't make out under her breath and stormed infuriated out of his cave. Leaving him like so many times before alone in the pale dark of the pride land's night. He lay back against the stone wall still frustratingly excited from the lioness's attentions. His mind wandered back to the days of his youth spent far from his homeland trying to hide from responsibility. Then as always, even though he fought not to, he thought of her, of how he missed Nala. Once she entered his mind he could think of little else and his loneliness would keep him company for the rest of the night.

The bright sun in his eyes bid an unwelcome morning. Simba groaned and rolled over trying in vain to find the shade again. He stretched painfully, and rubbed his eyes. The night had afforded him little rest and the day promised to be painful.  
"Their waiting for you."  
A voice said. He jumped up startled. Yalee lay just inside the entrance to the cave amused at his bewildered look.  
"Dam it Yalee, you scared the hell out of me!"  
Simba complained still trying to shield his eyes from the blinding light.  
"What? why are you so nervous Simba...did you think I was Salyi?" She replied with mock sympathy.  
" How mad is she?" He asked.  
" Well if you must be around her I suggest you stay near witnesses, but Simba you've got bigger problems  
then just her the lionesses are starting to worry about you."  
" their always worrying." He said annoyed.  
" I think their serious this time they had a meeting this morning, and their waiting to talk to you."  
Yalee's face held a look of concern, she wasn't kidding this time.  
" Can you imagine a kingdom where the king actually rules his subjects?" Simba sighed.  
" Strange thing about kings, their subjects always outnumber them." Yalee replied.  
Simba got up and headed out the cave and down the path towards the main ledge. Yalee following behind.  
" So Yalee, your with me on this right? I need someone whose not against me."  
" Do you even know what your stand is on this Simba?" She asked. He glared.  
" Always my lord." Yalee gave in.  
Simba smiled. Nala was gone, Raffiki and his mother where dead, Yalee was one and only confidant. She had been badly injured during the white lion's short reign and had never fully recovered. No longer strong or fast enough to hunt she had taken upon herself duties around the rock, becoming the primary keeper of the prides cubs, in the process becoming a sort of assistant to Simba. She in fact invaluable to him. A fact they where both well aware of and she took full advantage of the power this afforded her, freely criticizing her king when she felt he needed it. In this matter however she had always tried to be careful, not really certain as to her opinion, she could understand the lionesses position, but at the same time she knew why Simba was refusing to choose a new mate. Her late husband came to mind, the father of her two boys and she could understand.  
" By the ancestors, how can morality demand contradictory things? Do the spirits wish to drive us mad?"  
She thought to her self as they wound down the long path.  
The lionesses had all gathered at the great ledge. The group went silent as Simba approached.  
Scanning their faces, he made his way to one of the large boulders. He jumped up on the rock and made himself comfortable noticing Salyi glaring coldly at him near the back of the group.  
"Well?...I was told you wished to speak with me."  
Simba said trying to sound kingly. There was a moment of silence then Robira spoke up. She had become their main spokesperson for lack of an official leader of the lionesses.  
" Yes Simba, we are concerned about you. You need a mate. Simba our pride is healthy and abundant you have many excellent females to choose from but you have simply refused to..."  
" You all understand my reasons."  
" We are most capable of pleasing you..."  
" You know that has nothing to do with it."  
" Simba we MUST have an heir. It is too dangerous to wait. You know the chaos that can result from a line of kings breaking. We will NOT allow that to happen."  
Simba stood.  
" Are you threatening me?"  
"You know we are all loyal and you know we all respect your position. Every one of us cherishes love, but survival must be a priority."  
"Thank you Robira I understand the seriousness of this matter and will take the matter under consideration. This meeting is concluded..."  
" Simba we..."  
" I believe this meeting is done. Thank you for your opinions. Now we have work to do. I have rounds to make and I believe you had intended to hunt for antelope in the south fields today."  
For a moment him and Robira stared at one another and then the lionesses begin to break up whispering amongst themselves. Simba remained standing struggling to maintain his determined look as the lionesses dispersed. When they where finally gone he slumped down his head begging to hurt. Hell yea, going for a new record my fastest headache yet. He thought.  
" That was good."  
Yalee said, her voice coming from behind him.  
" But.."  
" I know I wont be able to put this off forever, but I'll deal with it as it comes, one day at a time."  
She didn't reply.  
" I know your about to tell me that I'm wrong. I sure you've got a great explanation, and I'm willing to bet your right, but I've got my rounds to make.  
Simba said standing.  
"Wasn't going to say a thing."  
Yalee said as he walked off. He made his way down to the plains and heeded off north intent on making his rounds as far away from the hunting parties as possible.

He led, even intentionally slowing his pace; the little lioness struggled to keep up with him. They where approaching the high lands and the terrain was begging to become graded and rocky. The cheetah stopped waiting for her to catch up again, the cub obviously exhausted. She was struggling not to slow him down.  
"Its all right. It's getting dark we'll stop here for the night." He said looking around for a good camp. A nearby small rock wall made a nice wind block.  
She looked around nervously.  
"What if there's tigers around here?"  
"So what if there are?" he laughed.  
"Your not afraid of the tigers !" She asked amazed at his lack of concern. He laughed again and leaned down to face her eye to eye.  
" Let me tell you something little one, Tigers are big and strong...But you know what? I don't care and you know why."  
"Why?" Her eyes growing wide with curiosity.  
"I'm the fastest thing that ever walked the earth. The fastest cheetah ever born. " he whispered.  
" Really?"  
"Yep."  
" Prove it." she demanded.  
He sat up a look of mock indignation on his face.  
"Prove it, prove it...Aren't you a demanding little thing. Not believing what your elders tell you. All right I will."  
She sat back, waiting expectantly.  
" Do it then."  
"I am. Be patient." He patted his paw against the ground, as if has testing it. Then bounced up for a moment on his feet. She continued to look at him disbelievingly. He hopped to the side then back again building up rhythm. She started to speak when his spotted form suddenly blurred, a yellow streak taking up his form. It moved, swirling around so fast the colors seemed to form a complete circle around her. The cubs mouth fell open stunned. The blur shot up the rock wall and the cheetah returned sitting half way up the rock wall sideways defying gravity. He smiled at her able to hold his position for a couple of seconds before his momentum wore off and with a jump he returned to the ground.  
"That was amazing!" the cub exclaimed. " How do you do that?" He smiled. "To be honest I cheat." he whispered as if he was telling her a great secret. He cut her off before she could question him.  
" Anyway you see now that no tigers going to be able to hurt me."  
"Yea! I couldn't even see you! Theirs no way a tiger could ever hit you!" She said. He winked at her, laying down against the rock. " and your with me...so you can go to sleep and feel safe." he said. Before he could stop her she was again curling up against him. The affectionate touch making his skin crawl.  
" I miss my parents..." she said starting to cry again.  
"I'm sorry"  
"...but I like you."  
"I'm glad." He patted her on the head, ruffling her fur. " go to sleep."  
" My parents used to tell me stories when I went to sleep." She looked up at him hopefully.  
"Do you know any stories?" He grimaced.  
"I can only remember my father telling me one story before he died. I was very young."  
" Tell it to me!"  
" No" he shook his head. "It was a scary story, too scary for cubs." His paw tapped nervously on the ground.  
"Why would your father tell you a scary story?" She asked.  
" I don't remember very well...but I think he hated me." She looked up at him as though he had spoken blasphemy.  
"No! No all parents love their cubs..." The little lionesses said patting him as if to comfort him. He smiled  
" ...Yes of course...how could I have thought that. ... I must be tired, we should sleep."

The gazelle sprinted through plains. Terror caused adrenalin coursed through his body, his heart pounding in his chest, every sense working over time searching the tall grass. Dusk was settling on the savanna and the dying light created illusionary threats in every shadow. Desperately he darted back and forth trying to dodge the phantoms. Turning, to late to avoid it, he saw a shadow take the form of a cat. He felt the impact of a blow as they passed. The last of his energy spent he came to a stop. His flight was done, he turned to face his pursuer. The shadow stood behind him waiting. Strangely he realized he had been cut at the same time he realized the wound was fatal and just quietly slumped to the ground.

That night the stars where beautiful alit each and every one as clear as flame. Simba lay on his back on one of the highest ledges staring at the sky like had when was cub. He could almost hear his father's voice telling him tales of the old kingdoms.  
"She's been gone for more then a year Simba." Yalee said from the dark of the path.  
"I know." He said  
"You know why she did what she did Simba, she wouldn't have wanted you to live your life in mourning for her." Yalee said her voice soft and sympathetic.  
"I know." He said.  
" I know my opinion doesn't matter here Simba. I'll leave you alone now."  
" It always matters Yalee."  
Simba said his voice quite and sad.  
" Please understand. Even if I'm wrong I need someone to understand. I loved her...I love her. Nala was everything to me. When I was with her everything was well...I was so very happy, truly happy...If theirs a chance I could be with her again...any chance, no matter how remote. Then I can't give it up, not for anything."  
" Not even us."  
" It can't be like that."  
"...and if it was."  
"...I can't give up on her, not for anything, not for them, not even for you."  
" I understand Simba." She said sadly and quietly vanished back into the shadows leaving her king alone with the night.

The pantheress ate her meal perched high in a tree, watching the sun set, and evaluating the days hunt. She had been surprised he had turned; usually they didn't deviate in direction that late in a chase, thus her hesitation. He hadn't been able to react fast enough to capitalize on it, but he had seen her that could have been dangerous. Mentally she scolded herself, reliving the chase, visualizing what she should have done. Hunting in the plains was easy, gazelles are stupid creatures. However she had dangerous work tonight such sloppy behavior could not be tolerated. The tree she was sitting in was one of the markers for the north border soon she would cross the barrier hills and reach the Wgili river. If they where their, they would be camped not far on the other side, and if they had she would find them.

Part two, Inner Demons

They walked along the edge of a deep gorge.  
"How come you're so small?" The loneness asked, her little keen voice sounding behind him and echoing off the rock walls. He looked back slightly annoyed  
" Cheetahs are not as big as lions, you should pay attention to what your doing, we have to be careful here little one, it's a long way down."  
"No.." She persisted pointing to his ribs visible through his fur.

"I mean you really thin..."  
" I don't eat very well. I have to keep a special diet."  
" Is that how you said you cheat? You eat something that makes you fast." She asked. He cast another annoyed look over his shoulder.  
"Your very clever, little one...I've been calling you that your two days and you haven't corrected me yet. What's your real name?"  
He helped her over a boulder.  
" My names Peara...but you can keep calling me little one I like it." He smiled  
"So how old are you?" He stopped walking, taking a moment to stretch.  
"I've been two for three weeks now." She said proudly. He looked surprised.  
" That old but..."  
"Mother said I was small for my..."  
Mid sentence he scooped her up with his paw and tossed her off the ledge. The surprised cubs screams radiated through the gorge, till she hit a rock jutting out about a hundred feet down. There was the sound of bones breaking and the rest of her fall was silent. He watched leaning carefully out over the edge, till she vanished from sight.  
"dam"

He awoke with a jolt. The surprise, casting bad breams aside.  
"Sir, Galee and the Aloss are here."  
He sat up, still shaking slightly.  
A guard standing nearby with a concerned look on his face.  
"Understood thank you."  
He replied.  
"Sir are you all right? ..."  
" I'm fine."  
"But..." the guard started  
"Never ask me that again."  
He said, interrupting the guard.  
"My apologize sir."  
The guard said bowing his head.  
"Go tell Galee I'll be with him in a minute."  
" Yes sir."  
The guard said taking off back to the camp.

She watched from a branch above. The guard left her field of vision presumably back to the others. It was he however, she had come to see. His name was Aride. He would be a stranger to the pride lands, its inhabitants far too wrapped up in themselves to know what they should of the rest of the world. In the outlands however the rumors of the past years had made him a legend, though few had ever actually seen him. He had done the impossible, become the king of the tigers. She was disappointed. He was not impressive to behold only average size for a tiger and a little thin. Briefly she considered trying to kill him, but the thought was quickly abandoned. This was just reconnaissance. He sat for a few minutes not moving either mediating, praying, or he had managed to fall back asleep while sitting upright. Carefully she committed every detail of what she could see of him to memory. Then he was up and walked off towards his nearby camp. There was no need to follow, that was enough. After waiting for a fem minutes to make sure he was a little ways off the panthers leapt to an adjacent tree. Then silently she began her trip branch to branch, then the ground and took off towards the south. Slipping into the darkness she considered the so called tiger king wandering what could make a being shiver in the heat of the jungle?

Aride found his camp a busy place. The Aloss had indeed arrived and in great number. The Aloss where a band from the south east region. Their leader was named Galee, he had managed to unite his band more then a year ago. Many bands where coming but they had not been expected, this was a surprise, Galee had been his rival since he had first began uniting the warlords. His guards met him as he entered the heart of the camp.  
" Sir, The Aloss have arrived."  
The guard said, sounding frantic.  
"So I've been informed. How many are there?"  
"At least fifty maybe more. Their waiting for you Galee said he would talk to you and you only."  
"All right Ill go see what they want, meanwhile go over to the Vileye camp. Tell them, I would like them to go search the woods where I just came from. There was a pantheress their, watching me and trying very hard not to be seen. I want to know why."

From the very break of dawn the sun ruled the sky without question, making the day bright and very hot. The morning saw the usual rituals of the pride, the lionesses gathering for the hunting parties and gossip, Simba waking up late yet again. Then there was the morning meeting filled with the same arguments and complaints, before finally king and subjects headed off to perform the tasks of their day. Leaving the great pride rock to Yalee and the pride's cubs. She lay against the wall of one of the larger dens. The two youngest, Sari and Ule, lay curled up asleep against her. The older ones, including her two boys, where playing out in front of her. Kiele named after her father, and Reighl after their father. She missed her husband especially when she watched her boys play. They reminded her so much of him.  
The oppressive heat of the midday combined with the two cubs against her began to make her sleepy. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shift slightly to make herself comfortable without waking the cubs. Just managing to situate herself she was startled by her boys crashing into her.  
" MOM we want to know if we can..."  
Kiele said excitedly.  
" Shhh, you'll wake them up!" She scolded.  
Kiele paused, and lowered his voice. " we wanted to know if we could go play at the river tomorrow?"  
" Maybe, well have to ask Simba when he gets back." She said with yawn.  
" Yea because we want to look for fish, like last time!" Reighl shouted  
" SHH, now I said maybe!"Yalee said in a hushed voice  
" Now go play before you wake up, Sari, and Ule."  
They ran off, back to where the other cubs where wrestling. Yalee lay her head back down, and again began the struggle to get comfortable.

Galee stood waiting for him, a small army behind him. Obviously attempting to look intimidating. Aride approached him without guards nor any visible sign of being worried.  
" Galee."  
" Aride."  
"Considering I still out number you at least three to one can I assume you are not here to fight us."  
" I and every warrior of the Aloss have come to pledge our allegiance to your cause."  
" I find that surprising."  
" In the past I treated you as my enemy Aride. I thought you where just a rival warlord, but now I believe I was wrong. You have united the warlords. Your army is the greatest gathering of our kind since before we where first scattered. You have made me believe."  
" What is then that you now believe?"  
" That your cause is winnable. That your quest, is struggle of all tigers and the fierce Aloss are thus here to join the fight!...Aride, my king we are at your service."  
" What do you want Galee?"  
"...My king?" Galee said feigning indignation.  
" Your willing to add your fierce Aloss to my force, so what are you expecting in return?" Aride asked dryly yawning in the face of Galee's attempts to intimidate and or lie to him.  
" That I be made second only to you and that I and my men share a proper proportion of what we help you win."  
Aride just stared at him for a few minutes and their was an tense expectant silence among the watching Aloss  
"...Welcome to my army."  
A roar arose from the masses of red and black behind him.  
" We are most honored my king."  
"...MY army."

The tiger slunk low through the thick brush. The pantheress was just ahead, sitting in an open clearing, grooming her fur completely oblivious. All around the clearing he could see his band taking up positions. As the last of his group took their place he leapt. His claws made it within nearly an inch of her back before she vanished. The pantheress rolled dodging his attack. As she turned her claws raked across his front leg causing him to stumble. He hit the ground just in time to run head first into another member of his band also trying to grab her. Another of his group went for her as she turned her back on his hiding place. He too was rewarded with nothing, as he nearly reached her she left the ground like she could fly. His attack went under her then her weight came slamming down on his back. Using him like a spring board she leapt the little clearing into the branches of a tree and was gone. Leaving the famed hunters of the Vileye band beaten like little cubs, behind her.

Simba didn't return from his rounds till nearly sundown. He had traversed nearly half the eastern side all the way to the border, killing as much time as he could get away with. He snuck up the path and managed to Reach his cave avoiding the lionesses. He slumped to the floor exhausted. The dust from his fur creating a small cloud around him. A noise could be heard coming up the path and Yalee appeared in his door, her two cubs hiding nervously underneath her legs.  
" Simba my two hooligans want to know if I can take them up to the river tomorrow."  
" Why do you want to go the river?" He asked sleepily.  
" They like to play in the water, its such a beautiful..."  
" And fish! We like fish!" Kiele finished for her.  
" Will you be all right by yourself?" Simba asked  
" Don't see why we wouldn't be the pride lands are relatively safe anymore." Yalee replied.  
" Fine with me." Simba shrugged closing his eyes.  
" Theirs no hunting parties tomorrow so the lionesses will be here to watch the cubs, just be back by nightfall." Simba said.  
" We should be back well before then." Yalee said  
" Have fun then." Simba yawned.

The sun only barely risen Yalee traversed the dusty path through the foothills that led to the northern river, Kiele and Reighl running ahead of her. Anxiously they cleared the last hill and the river came into view.  
" Now don't get in yet! I want to check it first."  
She called to them. She reached its banks and looked out at the water. It was as usual, shallow with a lazy current, not a danger in sight.  
" All right you can play now"  
The second she had spoken they jumped happily into the water disturbing the rivers tranquil surface. Yalee sat down and cleaned the dust from her paws in the cool water. She liked taking her cubs here. It was such a beautiful place. They would be content to play in the water for hours then she would catch them fish for their dinner. A treat they loved. She sighed contently It hadn't from here where she had first fallen in love. When it had not been such a tame place their father had once roamed along this river. She took up a comfortable place under a tree that overhung out over the water. Stretched out in the shade and let her front paws dangle over the side into the cool river.

"Sir we received word that a large group have formed farther down river and are on their way up to us now."  
"Excellent. Who are we still waiting on."  
"We know there are at least two more groups coming in from the north, but they may be another day."  
"Understood keep me informed."

The day flowed by pleasantly. Her boys played in and along the river until they where both soaked and covered in mud. As afternoon came they had grown hungry and Yalee managed to catch several nice fish a little downstream where it got deeper. They ate the lunch under the tree and then she set about getting them groomed much to their dismay. When she had them looking presentable she began preparing for the journey home. She tossed the fish bones into the water an walked back up the bank where her cubs sat.  
" You boys ready she asked."  
Amazed they where sitting still. When they didn't answer she suddenly noticed the frightened look on their faces. Following their stares she gasped almost tripping on the soft ground at the sight of a tiger standing in the path at the top of the hill.  
" BOYS! Get behind me.!"  
She yelled. They quickly did as they where told. Near the first another appeared. Downstream another crossed the river. Two more appeared along the hillside, she could see them everywhere twenty at least.  
" By the ancestors..."  
She whispered. They all stood staring at her, their faces cold and solemn.  
She threw her cubs to the ground and hunkered over them, snarling viciously, as two from the hill approached her.

Part three, Tidings of ill fortune

As time wore on Simba became increasingly worried. The day had gone, night had fallen, and Yalee and her cubs had yet to return. At nightfall he had led a search for them but the night had been against them. The moon was gone, hidden behind the clouds, and the darkness had been impenetrable. They had managed to search the nearby plains but beyond that, against his inclinations, Simba had called the search off till morning. If something had happened to them then he couldn't risk having other lionesses out wandering the pride lands in the dark.  
He sat awake in his cave hoping to hear them come up the path. A noise from behind him caught his attention. Already nervous he turned finding the cave empty. He had been watching his entrance for the last two hours it was impossible that anyone could have entered without his knowledge. Yet as he scanned the shadowy walls of the cave he had the sensation he wasn't alone.  
"Is there anyone here?"  
He asked the seemingly empty chamber  
" Great now I'm going crazy."  
He thought aloud  
He saw movement out of the corner of his eye and pounced, crashing painfully into the solid stone wall of his cave at full speed.  
"OW!... Brilliant you fucking idiot! I know I'll run into this stone wall, what a great idea!" He complained nursing his hurting paw. Suddenly a claw pressed against his throat.  
"Don't move."  
A cold voice whispered behind him. Simba obeyed. Slowly the claw was removed and he could feel something behind him move back.  
"Slowly turn around."  
The voice ordered. Careful to avoid any quick movements Simba turned to find himself facing a pantheress sitting in the middle of his den. Her fur was so black that she was visible only as a space darker then the rest of the night.  
"Who are you?" He asked  
"Unimportant" She said her voice like a permanent hushed hiss.  
"Ok...What do you want?" He tried again  
" I bring you a message king Simba. The pale queen, lady of the storm would like to inform you that the White lion's dreams have not died with him. For lack of him the tigers did not disband. They have found themselves a leader among their own kind. He has been building an army which will soon be coming for you. You must prepare for war." The pantheres replied.  
" Lady of the storm...You mean Nala? You know where Nala is?"  
Simba asked suddenly exited.  
"She warns you Simba, do not attempt to seek her out."  
"She is my wife"  
"She told me to tell you that your wife is gone, and you should move on." The pantheress's cold tone unchanging.  
" Tell me where she is!"  
He yelled at the shadow in front of him. She didn't seem concerned.  
"Foolish king A war is coming for you. You had better spend your time more wisely then lamenting lost love." She hissed. Then was gone Simba was again alone in his cave. He searched for the phantom scanning his room and the path outside but she had vanished.

After a sleepless night, day found pride rock a busy place. Yalee was still missing and the day would be a massive search. Simba had informed the lionesses of the warning he had received in the night, receiving in turn many skeptical looks. He asked for volunteers and four lionesses agreed, while rolling their eyes, to search the borders for any sign of the supposed tiger army, another four, who where glaring at him, would stay behind to guard the cubs, while Simba and the others, whispering amongst themselves that he had finally snapped, went to search for Yalee and her boys.

Yalee sat in rocky crevice. Her cubs huddled against her as tight as she could hold them, while she carefully watched every movement of her tiger guards. These tigers where not nearly as big as the monsters she had encountered when the white lion had come to pride rock. Those things had been more then twice the size of a lion, these tigers where only a little larger then the average lion. Compared to a male lion these here where only a little taller and had more bulk compared to their frames. This failed to be the least bit comforting however as any one of them was still bigger then her, and there was a great many of them.  
A new tiger came into her view. This one had a sense of authority to him and her guards nodded to him as he passed. She assumed he must be a leader of some sort. As he approached she stood, her face contorted into a menacing snarl. He stopped just short of her showing no signs of being bothered by her hostile appearance. He was not the biggest or the strongest looking of the tigers she had seen. Actually he was sort of thin with a worn look. His demeanor however contrasted his appearance, he radiated a sense of confidence, and his eyes held a sense of ferocity.  
"I swear I will kill twenty of you before I let you touch my children."  
Yalee growled. He made no immediate response, just staring back at her with an amused look.  
" I'm here for a war, not to murder a lioness and her cubs." He said eventually.  
"If you think you can take Simba's throne you will fail. We won't submit to you, to any tyrant, not again. We would rather die." Yalee hissed.  
" I think that's a bit overdramatic."  
" I hate you!"  
" Now that I believe." He replied, again seemingly unbothered by her attempts to be intimidating.  
" What do you intend to do with us." She asked nodding to her cubs huddling terrified against her leg.  
" Depends on you. I can't let you go because I'm not ready for anyone to know we're here yet, so you will have to stay with us. This is where is depends on you as having to watch you is going to be extra work for my men. We already have enough to do thus I would rather it not be any harder then it has to be. So I'm offering you a deal; you don't make it difficult for us to keep you. You follow our orders and you don't try to escape, then in return you have my word that you and your cubs won't be harmed."  
Yalee didn't respond for a few minutes they just glared at each other.  
" If you resist you will just make it harder for us, you cannot stop us, and we will hurt you for it. That won't be good for me, you, or your cubs."  
She nodded in agreement feeling guilty at even that.  
"I'll see to it that you are brought some food and water." The tiger said and turned to leave. On his way out he again stopped to speak to the guards and then disappeared from her sight.  
"Mom who was that?"  
Reighl asked looking up at her.  
"A tiger."  
She answered trying not to sound afraid.

Simba and his party of lionesses scoured the north river, first where Yalee was believed to have gone, then fanning out till they had searched the whole area of the Wigili river and the barrier hills. Not a single sign of her had yet been found. The only sign of tracks in the area was a brief stretch of imprints in the mud so over trodden identification was impossible. Anything could have created them. They searched the path she should have taken, and where she should have been, finding not a trace. The plausibility of her and her children being ok was steadily decreasing, and if they where hurt time was against them. Already midday Simba decided to try to search as much of the rest of the pride lands as could be done before nightfall. Searching all the savanna would be impossible so he planned to concentrate on the most trafficked paths. He split the search party, up into groups of two and sent them to search as many of the busy paths as they could, meeting back at the rock by sunset. He himself went off alone following the river.

" You succeeded?"  
" Yes my lady he knows."  
" Then it is in paws now."  
" My lady the tiger king, his strength is famed, his army great."  
" I know."  
" If Simba falls will we intervene."  
" ...Fate demands it be settled by them."  
" and the ancestors?"  
" They would never defy the will of fate."  
" If I may be so bold, it is not so simple is it?"  
" You're a clever a student."  
" You still love him I think."  
" Maybe to clever... It is a difficult thing to be rid of...Tell me have you ever been in love?"  
" Is this is a test?"  
" Everything's a test."  
" Yes my lady. I had a mate once, we had a cub. "  
" You left them?"  
" They where killed."  
"Killed...by whom?"  
" It doesn't matter?"  
" You don't care."  
"I did, once but in the end what difference does it make. Their dead, and how many husbands and sons have I killed? Every time I hunt and kill to eat I kill someone's Husband, wife, son or daughter."  
" That's very enlightened."  
" No my lady I have simply lost hope. Without such a goal as happiness to distract me I have been afforded a small manner of clarity."  
"They say that those without hope are the most powerful on the planet, as close to the gods as is possible. To them is granted the power to do anything...but find peace for themselves."  
" If that it is true my lady then it affords them no comfort I've found."  
"No I suppose it doesn't."

Galee sat watching the cheetah before him. Even sitting the little cat was incapable of remaining still, constantly shifting his weight back and forth, his impatience making the restful position annoying.  
"I don't even know why I bothering to waste my time considering hiring you. Galee said standing as if to leave.  
"Your not" The cheetah said. His voice was thin and slightly high commanding no respect despite his arrogant words.  
"This is not some sort of interview where I attempt to gain your approval. You're here because you are going to hire me." The cheetah smiled at him the epitome of condescending.  
"Maybe I will kill him myself..."  
"You are perhaps the most greedy creature on this planet you would not even be considering giving me anything whether you valued it or not. Unless you knew you had no chance of killing him yourself.  
"I find your price disgusting you little monster" Galee snarled. Yet again the cheetah laughed at him.  
"You knew what I wanted you would not have come unless you where willing to pay it."  
Galee could just glare at him. He was a warlord of tigers yet this one skinny little cat was talking to him like he was a stupid cub. It was done he had no choice and yet he found himself unable to tell him he was right. With great effort a slight nod was the best he was able to manage, and the cheetah before him was gone.  
"Sir, are you sure about him...?"  
One of his aids asked.  
Galee sighed. "Hell no! I hate that bastard with every fiber of my being, but if it's alive that little shit could kill it. That's why we need him, and unfortunately he knows it."  
"I cant believe that he actually wants.." the tiger beside him started.  
"Don't think about it. Why should we give a fuck. No one accuses you of war crimes when you rule the world." Galee let himself smile. Who cared they wouldn't be his relations.

Part four, The pale queen and the tiger king

Simba had known his destination when had first started to follow the river west. However he hadn't been aware that he had made that decision till he found himself standing at the edge of the western woods. The woods had become wild and unsafe without Raffiki to control its magic. He himself had forbid any of his pride from entering the forest along the entire length of the western border. Simba sat looking at it for some time, trying to give the rational side of himself time to talk the rest of him out of it. If she where alive, and anywhere close enough that he had any hope of finding her, she would be here. Yet another decision already made without his knowledge.  
The foliage of the woods edge was so thick it was like a green wall, impenetrable to light and imposable to see what was beyond it. As if it where cold water Simba suddenly bolted jumping into, getting it over with. Crashing through the forests edge, Simba crashed into the hard ground and rolled to his feet expecting to be attacked immediately. Standing frozen, tense, waiting. It took him a couple of seconds to realize he was all right. Relived he began his search; it was dark, very dark giving him a twenty foot range of sight at best. The walls of the forest went all the way up and formed a great ceiling overhead leaving the light of the sun all but absent from the woods interior. The ground beneath his feet was barren dirt no plant being able to live beneath the foliage. Not an inviting place. Timidly he began making his way farther in to the forest.

Yalee and her cubs walked amongst a huge line of tigers. The army moved two by two through the tall grass, carefully guarding their ranks so as to make but a small impression through the savanna. She had become disoriented by their winding path but as near as she could tell they where walking south along the north west boarder. She found herself surprised by her captors they where not like the tiger brothers who had accompanied the white lion. These tigers where still freighting but they where focused, disciplined. They seemed to be divided in factions but they all held to a central ranking system she had not yet entirely figured out. She knew the one who had talked with her was called Aride and he was in charge, he being by far the strangest of them. Throughout the day she had seen him shift back and forth from being almost friendly and hospitable to utterly cold lacking all empathy. He had once came back to her in line and asked if her cubs where being able to keep up, looking down at them almost fondly, then just moments later she had watched him beat another tiger into the ground for stopping to take a drink at a creek and holding up the line. Announcing loudly he would kill the next soldier who stopped without permission.

Simba walked onward into the dark, utterly lost. Massive tree trunks reaching up to contribute their branches to the great green ceiling loomed about him as the only landmarks; unfortunately he had found nearly a thousand some identical landmarks on his long journey inward. To both sides of him the horizon was lost to black oblivion, filled with phantoms which toyed with his senses. The shadows seemingly following him for distances only to disappear and then reappear elsewhere. His fur had long since been standing on end, his ears folded flat against his head. Two hours of walking through this dark place had left him a nervous wreck, to the point where anything would have made him jump. He yelled out surprised when he stepped on thorn, the sound echoing off into the distance. He pulled his paw back angry at himself for now alerting anything within a mile that he was here. He started to continue cussing at himself under his breath when his other paw stepped off into nothingness. Again startled and now cussing even louder he tried to shift his balance and right himself. Managing to catch hold of the edge of what he had no idea but his claws slipped easily from the soft dirt and he fell off into the darkness. He was relieved when he felt himself hit the rocky slope and start rolling despite the pain, at least their was something and he had not just fallen off the edge of the world. There was a load crash and he found himself at the bottom of what was apparently a valley or very large pit.  
He lay stunned trying to sort out the variety of pain he was feeling. His shoulder hurt from a rock he had hit, his head hurt, another rock, his paw hurt but it had hurt before. The entire side of his body hurt, because he had landed in giant thorn brush. "Dam" he thought out loud. He pulled himself out of the thorns. The ground here was rock. A look around revealed very little. The cliff was visible he had fallen around thirty feet down a slope he wouldn't be climbing back up. Trying to get an especially painful thorn stuck in his ear he felt his paw brush against fur, and in front of him the shadows stirred. "Shit" he said to himself as a pair of eyes lit up in the dark. Simba felt himself tense again and he prepared himself to fight. The lean form of a jackal emerged from the shadows. He laughed relieved. He could take any jackal easily. The animal slinked back and forth approaching him and made a strange howling sound. All around him eyes lit up off into the dark. As far as he could see, glowing eyes now glared at him. "Fuck" he said and decided to learn to climb.

Simba scrambled up the rock face of the cliff side. It was not an easy grade, and the jackals where apparently better climbers then he was. The edge was still a good ten feet from him and three jackals had already gotten within biting distance snapping at his paws and legs, a situation which was not helping his concentration. Reaching up to try to grab an overhang, the rock face came lose in his paw leaving him dangling with a tenuous hold. Looking down he watched the sea of angry eyes begging up the rock after him. His shoulder burned it would have to be my bad shoulder having to hold me he thought. He was considering letting go dropping into them killing as many as he could. " I don't suppose it would do any good to pray at this point, ancestors but I could use some help." he said to himself. Finding himself surprised by the sudden reaction. He heard a sound like thunder from above the canopy high overhead and the jackals bellow him went berserk, howling and running in panic. He watched them. The hopelessness of his situation almost amusing, when his grip failed. Simba braced but never hit the bottom. From below the great thorns he had fallen into rose up and caught him, crawling up the rock side like they where some sort of snake. His relief at not falling into his foes quickly vanished as the thorns wrapped around him and constricted as if they where indeed some sort of constrictor thousands of needles shoving into his skin. Within seconds he was wrapped tight in the vines, the last coils looping threateningly around his neck but not yet pulling tight. Then he was being lifted up and he felt himself sat on the ground at the pits edge near where he had originally fallen. The thorns shifted digging themselves back into the ground leaving Simba tied tightly to the dusty ground.  
"I should let them eat you just for being stupid enough to come here." a voice said to him. Simba struggled to look up against his sharp binds. The voice came form a fallen tree a couple yards from where he lay. Its body hollowed out by decay and laying upon his branches he could barely make out the figure of a creature halfway concealed by the gloomy dark revealed only by the pale tint to her fur.  
"Nala?" he asked "Is that..." constricting coils choking off his question.  
" I don't except such insolence here, king of the sun! You will call me queen." The voice was harsh and cold but familiar.  
"Please" Simba begged reduced to a whisper as the breath was being squeezed from his body. "Nala I love you." The thorns around his neck released allowing him to breath and to look up at the glaring green eyes of the pale phantom he was talking to.  
" Nala is dead!" her green eyes flared with a look that frightened him. " Foolish little king do you know how many tiger warriors are standing at your kingdoms doorstep right now. Yet you come here looking for me. I assure you the tiger king will not be weakened by any such foolish sentimentality. To you and your self absorbed pride-Landers he is almost certainly new news but to the rest of the world he has made himself a name as a brutal and cunning warrior, having one more battles then you have ever seen. So if I where you I would be getting my kingdom ready to fight him." Simba's expression did not change. " I don't care, I know I should but I don't I'm destined to be king but that doesn't mean I cant hate destiny. All I want to know is what would it take to make you love me again, what has to be done that we could be together again.?" Simba said staring into her glowing eyes. He saw her fight against it but her glare failed. She sighed her figure relaxing and the hate flicker out in her eyes, leaving her a lioness again, one who seemed tired and sad. "We can't be Simba, I'm sorry. I don't think you realize. I couldn't just go pray to the ancestors like you, I had to make certain deals, the kind you make with things that always win, the kind you have to pay. I got to save you they get me. That's the way it is. You want to know what it would take Simba the world would have to end! Its not going to happen. Go mourn me do whatever you have to, but to you I'm dead. And you get over it! Get married to some beautiful young lioness and have cubs because I didn't do this to have you just die with me! "He wanted to argue opening his mouth to speak but had know idea what to say. She slunk back into the shadows hiding all but her sparkling green eyes. The thorns released him and quickly reformed into a tight wall barring him from her. "Now get out of my kingdom!" Her voice echoed as if all around him. Simba looked pleadingly at the wall of brambles "They will escort you out." As she announced this as if by cue a wave of jackals broke the crest of the pit. Simba gave the wall one last determined look and took off at a sprint away from his pursuers

Her cubs managed to keep up with relative ease young and healthy, but the pace quickly wore on Yalee her old injuries beginning to ache. The pain growing as she walked until her back, hips and legs throbbed with every step. She fought against showing it for a long time afraid of what punishment she might bring down in proxy on her young sons. However it was a facade she couldn't maintain. As one of her paws slipped her legs gave out and she fell painfully to the ground unable to get up. The tiger in front of her apparently assigned to guard her looked back, expressionless he whispered to the tiger in front of him a command which spread on up the halting line. Within a few minutes Aride came walking back the one she had heard called Galee following behind him. She looked up defiantly at the two tigers still struggling to get up.  
"We will rest here" Aride announced. Galee growled seemingly aggravated and began walking up the line spreading the order. " What's wrong with you?" Aride asked looking down at her. "Old wounds." she said, painful memories turning her voice into a snarl. " My scouts say our destination is about another half and hours walk from here. Rest do, what you have to. Tell him when you are ready to move again." he said indicating the tiger now sitting in front of her.

"You don't intend to punish us for holding up your line." She asked having expected him to be angry. "If you can't walk what good does it do me to punish you? I doubt it would make you any faster." She studied him, but could make little of his worn features. His demeanor worried her almost as much as if he where just out right violent because she didn't understand it. "Don't play with me." she finally said venting her frustration. "I thank you for not hurting us I know you could. But don't think I actually believe that it's out of kindness." His expression never faltered. His gray eyes like a stormy sky unchanging despite whatever he may be thinking. "You mistake kindness with mere efficiency lioness. I don't punish people when it won't do any good. Now however if I thought it would motivate you..." He said his voice sounding tired. "You tell him when you're ready and not before I don't intent to stop again." Then he walked off. If she was to ever get home she thought to herself and Simba asked me what their leader was like, I would have absolutely no idea what to say.

Simba reached the rock as the sun was setting. His search parties having arrived some time before where waiting on the main ledge, rubbing sore paws, and grumbling. He caught many shocked looks at his appearance bleeding from many wounds and, despite several attempts to groom himself, still wearing hundreds of thorns in his fur.  
"We searched every path in the whole north side Simba. But we found no sign of Yalee or her cubs. It's like they just vanished." A lioness reported trying not to stare at him. Simba nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid their disappearance can longer be our greatest concern. I am now certain of the incoming tigers." He announced. The lionesses around him traded conspiratorial looks.  
"Did you see them?" Robira asked dryly  
" No however..." Simba began  
" Neither did we Simba, we didn't even find enough tracks to be a bison herd and we have spent the entire day searching. Don't you think we would have seen some sign of an army?" A tone of sarcasm evident in her voice.  
" Do you think I'm crazy Robira, do you wish to challenge the capability of my rule?." He demanded  
" No...of course not Simba." She stammered, shocked at his bluntness.  
" Then I still rule here are you challenging what your king orders."  
" No...I"  
" Then do as I say. I will not be argued with when my pride may be in danger. Tomorrow we will make all preparations necessary for this prides safety. Do you or any other lionesses here need me to remind them of  
The traditional punishments for insubordination."  
"No you do not need to remind me. I am at your service my king." She said clearly annoyed at having been yelled at. Simba gave a stern glance at the rest of them before heading off to his cave. Trying to hide how much pain he was in. I have to admit I do look crazy he muttered silently to himself.

The tigers made camp near the western border almost halfway down the plains. With permission from her guards Yalee led her cubs under a small tree to rest. Her boys fell down, almost instantly falling asleep. She carefully lay down next to them. Stretching she leaned back against the tree, fighting off her own tiredness determined to guard her sleeping children from any dangers which might arise. Her tiger captors now free from their ranks and wandering about.

The pantheress walked along the branches of the ancient dead tree to where her master sat looking down into the gloom. "You requested me." She said stopping behind the lioness. Her master looked weak, very sad and nearly exhausted, a look she was not accustomed to he made her feel uneasy. Nala turned to face her, green eyes glazed with hint of restrained tears. " Exeteress, in your honest opinion who do you think will win this war." The black cat was silent surprised at her master addressing her so informally and obviously not eager to answer. "You think Aride is stronger don't you?" Nala asked.  
"I don't know what to make of the tiger king my lady. He is odd." the pantheress said.  
"I would like to think this is a conversation between friends ex." Nala said her voice weary.  
"It is my lady." Exeteress answered.  
"What's your then opinion ex?" Nala asked again.  
"I think that Aride is a warrior whatever else may be, and is a ruler of other warriors. Simba is not and he is a ruler of hunters and gatherers how so ever brave they may be." The panther answered truthfully. Her lioness master nodded in agreement. "Exeteress I think I'm going to piss a whole bunch of things off. Want to help?" The pantheress smiled.  
" Of course my lady what did you have in mind." The fire returned to the green eyes of the pale queen and she smiled mischievously. "You wanted to learn black magic well lets skip to the final, how to end the world." Nala walked by the stunned pantheress and down to the forest floor. "Coming?" she asked. "How to do what!" the pantheress stammered running after her master.

Yalee awoke with the sun in her eyes. A paw reflexively reached for her cubs, and found them missing. She leapt up terrified, cursing out load at herself. The first thing she saw was Aride sitting with his back to her some ten feet from where she lay. She took two steps towards him and leapt snarling. Hearing the snarl, he half turned before she hit him. The cold expression in his eyes unchanging even in surprise. The mother lionesses slammed into him, viscously scratching and biting, her claws dug into his back but her bite to the neck missed. He rolled with her attack letting her momentum carry her over his shoulder, to slam painfully into the hard ground. Yalee spun to attack again, screaming incomprehensibly at him. "Their right there!" Aride yelled bracing himself to be hit again, pointing to her two cubs playing in the grass nearby. She stopped inches from hitting him again, amazingly relived but still too angry to calm down. Aride nodded to several tiger guards approaching her and they stopped nodded in recognition and returned to their post.  
"What are you doing!" she demanded her small frame trembling from the passing rage and concern.  
"Dam it lioness! He snapped, their playing because their children. I'm watching them because their mother was tired and I promised they would be kept safe." She could just stare at him unable to stop glaring learning nothing from his features. "I….I don't understand." Yalee stammered. Her cubs ran up to greet her, and she hugged them far too tight for their comfort. "It's not that complicated lioness. I'm just here to accomplish my goals. I don't want to murder you. In fact, though I doubt you will believe me, I would rather hurt as few people as possible in the process." Her anger was passing replaced by gratitude strange to feel for a tiger.  
"I'm sorry" She said "did I hurt you?" Aride looked over his shoulder examining the deep bloody groves that ran up his upper back and over his right shoulder, with detached amusement.  
"No I seem to be fine." he replied.  
"Bullshit." She said scowling at him. Angry he thought so lightly of her attack. Searching the grass around the tree, she found the herb she wanted near the tree's roots. Yalee walked behind him chewing the herbal leaves to release the sap and then rubbing them into his long cuts. He watched her, his expression still unchanging. The tiger's back and shoulders where muscular, though not huge. She could see the scars of many other cuts that had not been cleaned as well the ones she had caused would be. She noticed his paws where black and deformed, at least one was missing a toe, apparently he had survived a lot "Five minutes ago you hated me lioness. Now you're helping me?" Aride asked. His skin was cold to her touch. It seemed oddly fitting. She realized the unchanging look in his eyes was the cold she felt, a winter storm. It was if by some curse the heat could not touch him  
" I thought all tigers where monsters" she said "I was wrong. You've been kind to us Aride. "It was wrong of me to hate you just because of what you are." He turned to look at her and she saw the rage of the storm in his frozen gray eyes. "You like to think in absolutes don't you? Now you give to much credit lioness. I am her to wage war against your king, a war which I will win at all costs. Many of your people will die at my paws" He stood stretching. "Thank for your treatment my back feels much better. I will have you brought breakfast we will be moving soon." with that he headed off into the ranks of his army.  
"and still I don't understand you." Yalee said to herself watching him leave.

Part five, Quests

"Who is it that we are looking for my lady." Exeteress asked, her master wandering back and forth through the low brush. " I don't know his name, don't know if he has a name. He calls him self All'sgod I think it's a joke but I never got it." Nala and the pantheress made their way out of the thicket and found themselves standing at a stagnant murky pond. " I thought you where the only sorcerer in these lands my lady." Exeteress said trying to peer into the black water. " He's not a sorcerer." Nala said catching the pantheress shoulder and pulling her back. Sitting down the lioness seemed to be studying the water and talking to herself. " but then how could he know such ancient magic?" the pantheress asked. Nala drew a line across the black soil with her claw. " because to him their not ancient. See that line don't cross that line." The pantheress jumped as the waters surface shattered and suddenly found her face barely missing the bite of a massive crocodile. "You've gotten a little bigger since last we met." Nala said matter of factly, redrawing her line several inches farther back. Exeteress moved all the way back to the thicket not caring to be any where near so close as either line. "The pale queen." The giant crocodile said inching himself slowly back into the water. "What honor do I owe such a visit." It said its voice deep and rumbling. Nala smiled "Its just such a pleasure talking to you All'sgod." "What do you want?" the croc growled. "I want to summon a storm, a really big one. My grandfather was able to summon a great storm using ancient ruins and I want to know how he did it." His eyes shifted to look at her in what she guessed was a glare. "What do I get out of it?" he said. "Rising waters." Nala replied indicating his decrepit pond with her paw. "Maybe enough to get you back to the Nile." She thought she saw him smile, it was hard to tell but he was making as sound similar to a chuckle. "Let me eat the pantheress." The crocodile said his gaze turning to Exeteress. "No I need her." Nala said "but I've heard there are bison grazing in the river valley My jackals could chase a couple this way if that means we have a deal." He looked like he might be smiling with crocodiles was very hard to tell.

They walked along the edge of dead river bed. This far the south west the forest began to merge with the river valleys of the great rivers flowing south to the ocean. The was the old wood, birth place of the ancient forests long ago. When she had been his student Raffiki had warned her that this was a place of old magic's that none but the most powerful could control. To date she had never come this far into it. It had an aura that made her nervous.  
There was underbrush here, the strange thorns of the wood that grew without light except in greater quantities then she had ever seen. Hollow skeletons of trees stood choked by the vines, refusing to fall. No simple charms would bend these plants to her will. She could feel magic's radiating from them, angry magic's. Very faint like an echo she could here the sound of rushing water coming from the long since dry bed bellow them. As if the former river haunted its grave. Nala, the pale queen, the lady of storm shivered nervously. Exeteress walked behind her scanning the forest for the causes of phantom noises.  
Coming round a bend they found the first evidence of what they where looking for. On both sides of the path sat two stone pillars engraved with runes. What once had probably been a cap stone lay on the path in rubble.  
"Can you read them?" Exeteress asked coming up along side her. Nala studied them carefully.  
"Reads like a poem. It was probably once a rune to protect the path but its been broken." She indicated the fallen top part.  
"In the cradle of the shadow, In the realm of the night, This is the home of the storm kings, forever untouched by the light."  
Nala breathed a deep breath  
"Well looks like we found it." She finally said.  
"How nice." Exeteress replied.  
"All right lets go...home I guess...Don't touch anything ...I can tell you from personal experience NEVER touch runes you cant read." Nala carefully stepped over the rubble and passed between the stones. She waited a moment and when nothing happened continued down the path Exeteress falling in behind.  
It took them the rest of the day walking until they reached the paths end...literally. The river bed suddenly fell away unto a great pit, similar to the one in the woods interior but more then three times it size at least. On the other side a small mountain rose dramatically from the otherwise flat land. Its peak went up through the canopy which hugged the rock so tight the rest of it was cast in complete dark. She could see caves riddling it.  
"Wow" the pantheress said "Its like the anti-pride rock."  
"That's exactly what it is." Nala said staring at it in awe. " This is where my people came from. This is land of storm." After allowing a moments reflection wearily they began their way around the massive pit.

That night the tigers made camp outside the border of the pride lands to the west, along the river Soti between Simba's and the pale queen's kingdom. Here Aride made his final preparations. He had already sent the Vileye and the Mothos off down the river towards the south fields. The Sigiti and the Aloss had headed north east under cover of darkness. The Aloss where to find the source of water that feed the small creeks of the pride lands. The Sigiti where to make their way to the eastern border. Their walk was the longest and they would not be in position till late that night so he planned his attack for tomorrow. The tiger king sat on the sandy beach, a beautiful night sky overhead and the river behind him gently babbling. Not far behind him the lioness mother lay with her cubs still under guard. The thought of her almost made him smile...almost. Tomorrow her delusions about him would vanish. Tomorrow her people would know he was here and they would fight. Whether Simba knew it or not he and him had come to an impasse long ago. At least one of them would die here and both would bathe in blood before the end. He waited hoping for the excitement some warriors' clamed to feel or revulsion at the thought of death and killing, neither came. He felt only the wind of a ghostly winter storm against his fur. He settled down into the soft sand to rest for the night.  
Yalee drifted in and out of an uneasy sleep. Kiele Reighl lay tucked safely against her. The river was lit by a nearly full moon. The light shining off the sand in contrast to the dark oblivion of the woods on one side and the vast grayness of the plains on the other. She might have thought it pleasant under better circumstances. She glanced over at her guards nearby, both seemed to have fallen asleep. Not far from her down river she saw Aride also sleeping the day had apparently been as long for them as it had been for her. Careful not to awake her sleeping children she sat up and stretched, looking over at the sleeping Tiger king. He'd lost any aura of strength, now asleep. The tiger lay huddled up against himself shivering in the heat of the central pride lands. It made him seem very frail. "What happened to..."She made a frightened scream muffled into a silent gag by the a tight grip on her throat the face of a cheetah inches from hers. "shhhh, lioness." it hissed. "Go, take your cubs. Lucky for you I have business with your captors." Releasing her roughly he raised his paw indicating for her to be quite. The smile that crossed his spotted face made her nervous. He turned headed towards Aride. The small cat stalked across the beach slowly, then suddenly blurred in speed and leapt his claws reflected in the moonlight like daggers. Yalee thought first about her cubs, then Simba and her pride, thought about running, decided she should run but instead she screamed, "ARIDE! GUARDS!" startling everyone especially herself. Aride jumped awake managing to move just enough to avoid having his throat cut the cheetahs strike instead tearing deep groves down his chest. His surprise ruined the cheetah threw a blow into Aride's face to keep him down and spun around to face her once again, his face now contoured with a mad rage. It's speed was astonishing and he was half way towards her before she realized he was moving. One of the tiger guards managed to get in front of her in time and swung a crushing blow down at the would be assassins head. The cheetah dodged his attack contemptuously and literally ran up his leg and onto his shoulders. The tiger struggled to rip the spotted little cat off but it still managed to avoid his grasp, leaping from him. To deal with next guard now also in his way. The cheetah hitting the ground rolled under the tigers lunge coming out unscathed behind him. He now stood only feet from her. Yalee backed up nervously. " YOU STUPID WHORE! All you had to do WAS RUN!" it snarled shifting back and forth preparing to lunge. The two tiger guards started to move towards him and then she watched them fall over from wounds caused by blows she hadn't even seen, "I was going to kill you anyway but now I'm going take the cubs first and leave you alive enough to watch." the cheetah hissed at her. The cheetah leapt and this time it was Aride who ruined his attack. The tiger king grabbing the light cat out of the air its claws just nicking Yalee's nose. Aride Roared and attempted to smash the quick little cat into the ground but the cheetah managed to turn itself in flight and landed on his feet. A spotted paw blurred and Aride felt claws meet his body still coming down. The cheetah glanced one last hateful look at Yalee and took off. Tigers now coming from all directions to Aride's aid. It leapt the river in a single jump and moments later had vanished into the tall grass. Pursued by several tigers others surrounded the beach.  
Yalee tended to her cubs. They had managed to sleep through the commotion, laying peacefully completely unaware. She envied them. Aride sat down next her a haggard expression on his face. " Thank you...You didn't have to warm me." He said after a long pause. Yalee looked up at him, still shaking from the shock, irrationally angry. Yalee just shook her head and got up to check on the two fallen guards. They where both already dead, one had been slashed through the artery under his front leg, the others throat had been cut. She walked back and began to examine the deep gashes the cheetah had carved into Aride's face and chest. "Shut up." she commanded cutting off his protest before he could vocalize it. The cuts where bad but had not been delivered as accurately as the guard's. The worst was the one down his face having just barely missed his eye.  
"Your luckier then your guards." She said.  
" No." He said. "he could have killed me and he choose not to.  
" Why would he do that?"  
"I don't know." He replied  
She sent one of his aids to look for roots and herbs around the nearby shore, pushing Aride onto his back she began tending to him. As the things she needed where brought to her she carefully cleaned and bound his injuries against infection. Many of the plants she used where acidic and burned when applied. Simba had always complained bitterly when she treated him. Aride however never flinched nor made a sound in the more then an hour it took her to finish. He simply lay still moving only when she asked him two watching her work with perhaps a hint of appreciation in his cold eyes. If she wasn't imaging it, then it was first expression of any kind she had seen since meeting him.  
"You're a better patient then my king." Yalee said.  
"He is injured often in battle." Aride asked. She fought very hard not to laugh.  
Finishing she let him up. Sitting down next to him feeling very tired. Copying what he'd watched her do Aride took some of the herbs which had been left over, chewed them for a moment and then applied the sap to the cuts on her mussel. Yalee winced  
"Ouch ! Dam"  
Simba was right it did hurt.  
"I want to know why you're here?" she asked, locking eyes with him.  
"We want your land." he replied.  
"I figured that." Yalee snapped.  
"These tigers want a home, ours is plentiful I can see that. I want to know why you're here. Why are you the one to lead them?" The storm returned to his eyes.  
"It's a long story lioness" he replied laying down again.  
"My name is Yalee and I want to know. I just saved your life now I want to know who I saved, are you really just some brutal warrior who's good at lying. "  
" You think I'll tell a member of my enemies pride my life story."  
" Yea...yea I do." She said  
Aride nodded at one of the nearby guards and they headed off back to the main camp leaving them alone on the beach. He rolled over on his back and smiled.  
She wondered for along time if he would answer, reconsidering whether she really wanted him too.  
"You would be the only one to date I've ever told this to. You would tell no one else."  
He said softly.  
"You'd trust me?" She asked  
"Yea I would." Aride replied. Yalee nodded solemnly in agreement.  
"I would tell know one else." She said.  
He began "I don't know how well you know your history but long ago my race lost a war and was banished from these good lands unto the wilderness. Since then we've lived our lives in broken fragments wandering over great distances. There are groups of tigers who think it's their destiny to return and re fight the war their ancestors lost. Others simply hate you pride Landers for the lives you are able to lead. Its largely of these two groups my army is formed. I however was neither. To be honest I didn't care. I was born without a home and as a young rouge never felt I needed one. I met a tigress named Ase'ah and she was the most beautiful thing in the world." She watched his eyes stare past her as if he was seeing things far away.  
"Those where good days. We loved each other and where happy just being together regardless of where we roamed. We where together for two summers, had plenty of food following a group of gazelle herds and she was going to have cubs soon. But I made a mistake, wasn't the best tracker then. ... I went too far."  
His eyes faded off into the gray storm and his expression changed back to the cold she had seen in him before.  
" I got to close to the mountains, wasn't paying attention to the seasons. At the foot of the north mountains winter comes so very fast. A storm came down and locked all the passes with snow so deep you could drown in it. We found a cave to hide in but it just kept getting colder and she needed food of course. I went out in the storm, she didn't want me to but we both knew I had to so I went."  
Yalee saw a flame light in his eyes and he snarled slightly at something she couldn't see. She backed up a little nervous  
"For more then a week I hunted in that dam storm. All I found was a small rabbit one pathetic rabbit...and I lost it. She needed me," His claws flexed against the soft sand.  
"My family needed me and I fucking lost it...after that I don't know how long I was lost before I found our cave again. She was dead, frozen." He glanced over at her two cubs.  
"I never got to see my children. My gods hate me Yalee. They let me live through that winter so I could spend my life contemplating my failures. You find me odd it's because not whole anymore, only my body walked out of those mountains my souls still their lost in a winter that lasts forever."  
Yalee swallowed awkwardly. She felt sorry for him, A great desire to comfort him stirred inside her, but at the same time she saw the hint of rage in his eyes and it frightened her what someone so devoid of hope might be able to do.  
"So you're here for revenge. The world took everything from you so you're going to take everything from my people. You blame us because we had a home when you didn't?" She asked timidly. The rage died away in his eyes.  
"No, no...I don't care about my self anymore and I don't blame anyone but my self for her death. I'm here to make a home for my people so no other tiger has to live through what I did. I know it's not fair to your people but all I can do is fight for mine." He stood up, the expression fading from his face back to the neutrality. She couldn't think of a response. She could just watch him as he walked away, back down the beach alone. As he left she broke down and began to cry freely. "Dam it you bastard...you come here to be my enemy, you take me and my children captive, plan to fight my people, why cant you at least be someone I can hate."

Passing a great boulder they found the skeleton of a huge lion and the bones of many other unidentifiable animals surrounding it. Nala stopped to examine it. Skeletal jaws where still clamped onto one of his legs and the skeletons claws where implanted in the remains of some sort of skull. "He died fighting." Nala said. "Fighting a lot of things." Above him on the rock was a hastily sprawled writing.  
May the warrior kings honor our brethren who have died bravely, fallen to many foes.  
Its odd its not written in runes of the wood or the pride lands. Its some sort of eastern script. I can only read it because its similar to the Bagua scripts Raffiki showed me."  
All along the rim they continued to pass skeletons, some obviously of lions, a few possibly of other big cats, and some which looked like jackals. The skeletons remained for the most part intact locked in positions of combat with one another. As if their hatred for each other in life kept their remains fighting in death immune to the passing of time. Or perhaps the scavengers of this area simply knew better then to bother place. Either way they where walking through the grim remnants of a massive battle. The trail of death leading them to the feet of the dark mountain in front them.

It took them nearly an hour before they at last found themselves standing exhausted at their destination. Set into the Cliffside, Huge black stairs wound their way up to a large ledge overhead. Nala and Exeteress sat looking up at them catching their breath and rubbing sore paws. Nala examined them amazed. The natural paths of pride rock utterly failed in comparison. She knew that it took months to carve even a simple line rune, wearing ones claws down slowly scratching the stone. She had always been amazed at the effort which must have been put into more intricate carvings. But she had never seen anything like this, this was beyond imposable. As they made their way up they found even greater designs, pillars, and statues.  
"It would take eons to carve this." Exeteress commented behind her.  
"I don't think it was carved." Nala replied pointing out a place where the black surface had been chipped revealing the gray stone bellow. "I think its black because it was burned. Every now an then I see scorch marks I think lighting did this." Nala said.  
"What kind of sorcerer could command lighting so accurately?" Exeteress asked in awe. Nala was silent for a moment.  
"Honestly none, I've never heard of any sorcerer or sorceress ever who could do anything close to this. Rohad was supposed to be the most powerful of our line and as far I saw the best he could manage was within ten fifteen feet of his target. If lighting did do this, whoever commanded it wasn't a sorcerer, they where a god." she shook her, finding her own conclusion absurd.  
The stairs emptied out onto wide ledge. Like the path from which they'd just come it was scattered with the dead. Against the Cliffside stood a long archway intricately detailed with runes, a passage presumably to the inner caves. The two made their way across the ledge careful to avoid disturbing any of the remains. "From the looks of it nothing has bothered the bodies since they died. Don't know why but I don't want to be the first to try it." Nala said thinking out loud. As they passed under the archway Nala felt the runes above her and on the walls of the tunnel beyond ripple with power. "The place knows where here...and nothings happened yet." She said in a whisper.  
" Maybe it's waiting till we get inside so we can't escape." Exeteress's voice replied her black form having completely vanished in the dark of the passage, a drastic contrast to Nala's pale fur which made her the only visible thing in the tunnel. As their eyes began to adjust they came to a large inner room. Even in the dark she could see giant rune relief's on the high ceiling above and on the floor leading to a large stone with a carved back so as to make a place to sit.  
"This would be the throne room I assume." the pantheress voice said from the dark behind her.  
"And that would be the king." Nala said walking forward to better see the skeleton which sat in the chair. Once a cat, almost definitely a lion sprawled on the stone seat its skull sitting on the floor beside it.  
"King Raganata son of Invistiar." A third voice said. Nala turned startled to what she had thought to be one of the dead bodies." from the shadows the figure emerged slowly. It appeared reptilian or had been once, a long time ago. Nearly its entire skeletal structure could be seen through thin mummified skin. It's body shrunken and deformed. If was alive it was either by the power of frightening magic's or the grace of a miracle. "Who are you to come to the house of storm." it asked its voice a gravely hiss. Exeterss stepped up to her side as if to defend her master from the strange thing. "My name is Nala," Nala said slowly, admittedly "daughter of Taka, son of Rohad the white lion." the creature smiled its teeth rotted and partly missing. "Daughter of Taka...son of the white lion...My lady." It tried to bow, its deformed legs allowing little movement. "For four generations I have waited for you., guarding the secrets that you might use them to avenge us. You have come to end this war, to set us free?" It swayed strangely.  
" I need to know how to summon the storms like In the ancient tales. The runes where supposed to be here." Nala said. The thing nodded slightly.  
"They are here. Take the tunnels upward. I'm sorry but I cannot take you there myself. I was bound here to guard this place but at your return my soul rebels from this weak and feeble frame." Its vacant eyes scanned the bodies on the floor. "My watch is over...my brethren call me" It smiled again "...I must tell them of the return...of our queen." with that the creature swayed again and then fell to floor. The flesh of its frame rotted away before their eyes leaving its skeleton as bare as the other bodies in the room.  
"I would say that its dead ...except for the fact I think it was dead before." Exeteress commented. Nala nodded silently in agreement.  
The tunnels where like a labyrinth leading them from one room after another. The varios runes continuing to grow stronger as they made their way upward. Where as Pride Rock's rooms where simple natural caves, these had been cut by some powerful force for specific purposes, each intricately decorated and furnished. They found a hall for eating which had low stone table with boulders cut away to make comfortable seats. Several rooms for sleeping, two of which being small having room only for one inhabitant. Another was apparently a barracks with room for a hundred or more. All had beds longer lower versions of the seats, far more comfortable then the grass mats Simba's pride used.  
Eventually they came to a stone stairs, similar to the one outside, which led them up at last to the mountains pinnacle room, the room to which every rune in the place was leading her to. Nala could sense it was generating an incredible power.  
They entered into a massive cavern. The walls and floor, covered in ancient runes telling of history and magic like a great library. The ceiling was the natural peak of the mountain unaltered. The rooms central furnishing was a pillar, upon which sat, highlighted by the light of the moon filtering down from some hole high above, a lions skull. Nala found herself walking towards the pillar, uncontrollably drawn to the relic. A great thorn plant grew out of the floor wrapping around the pillar and trough the skull holding it firmly in place. The skull itself was carved with writing far too ancient for her to read as was much of its resting place. Yet it seemed to call to her. The thing demanding of her understanding. She walked around it searching eagerly for something legible to her . At last in one corner she found a sentence of the ancient western valley writings, a writing from which the wood runes had derived, the closest she was going to get to being readable.  
"He is dead now...He who could not die, Sihadd first son of the sky. We lay him here forever in his father's sight"  
Nala read out loud not even really meaning to.  
"Who?" Exeteress asked cut short by the look on Nala's face.  
"Sihadd was the son of Felous and Feara...In the myths of how the beasts where created. He was the third lion...A god."  
"you said no sorcerer could have created this place." the pantheress said.  
"I did... but I would have preferred not having been proven right." Nala replied.

It is said force is strength times speed, the little thing was leaving claw marks is solid stone. Stalking back and forth, snarling angrily in an incomprehensible language, something like the eastern language sped up a hundred times. The little cat made Galee nervous.  
"They saw you. You realize the plan doesn't work unless they think a lion killed him. Now where going to have to be very careful. We lost the advantage of surprise and now we need the perfect moment."  
The cheetah stopped his pacing and glared at him, its paw tapping frantically on the ground. Galee did his best to show no reaction, to get to be where he was today he had on several occasions employed unsavory beings. He had worked with this cheetah twice already and of all the unsavory he was the worst. When dealing with such temperaments one couldn't push them to far or they could easily turn on you, nor could one back down from them and let them know you feared them. To them that was like blood in the water.  
"You told me the lioness would cooperate, that she would take any opportunity to escape."  
"I was wrong, Aride I'm finding is exceptionally skilled at winning loyalty." Galee said trying to sound calm.  
"This was because of your meddling; this is what happens when useless shits think they can give ME advice. I DON'T FAIL!" The cheetah roared striking the boulder in between them again. One of Galee's captains startled, jumped forward thinking the cheetah was advancing, a mistake. A spotted paw blurred out of eyesight and he died because it, falling at Galee's feet. "You will get another chance. Follow the army stay unseen. Don't try anything. I will arrange the situation and let you know when and where" Galee said. The little cat was glaring at him, twitching neurotically but hadn't attacked and that was a good sign.  
"Don't wait too long Galee or I may forget which tiger I'm supposed to kill. Galee chuckled choosing to pretend it was a joke, but the look of conviction in little cat's eyes didn't falter. Galee nodded in agreement. "Soon..."

At dawn Simba began making his preparations. After a heated discussion he had given Robira permission to take five lionesses with her on a hunting trip providing they not venture to far north and that she would take Salyi with her. Ten more he left as a contingent to guard the cubs. The rest he split in half and placed them on two large hills that overlooked the main path to the rock. So it was he found himself sitting in the heat of the day on a shade-less hill with thirty pissed off lionesses whom he was convinced thought he was crazy. As he watched the eventless horizon still picking thorns is his fur he began to wander if they might be right.

The cheetah sat in the tall grass watching the tigers leave. His yellow fur matched the burnt savanna landscape, his neurotic, constant movements in rhythm with the swaying of the grass against the breeze making him all but invisible. He saw the tigers as indefinitely inferior to him as he did all things he had yet encountered in his life, pathetic things living in a world a hundred times slower then his. Their movements where like watching plants grow. To have to listen to their speech or worse yet imitate it, so they could understand him was painful. Thought forced into a near incomprehensible slur like ripples in tree sap. He lived in a better world then them, then anyone. Where he lived he could walk and nothing could catch him, movements at his leisure where blurs to the things in their lesser existence. He had descended in the since that it is the opposite of transcendence. Near constantly he thought of his own superiority. Yet it was only a façade desperate to fool his own mind and save it from realization. He was far less then any living creature. Despite a spotted fur, whiskers, claws, and blood he was no longer a cheetah. For so long he had been so very and utterly afraid that he had eternalized his fears until he embodied them. So he had become a monster from legend made real.  
A pain from his stomach brought his mind back into focus, back to the mortal realm. He was hungry. It had been nearly two weeks since he had eaten. The weakness was beginning to get bad, eventually...soon, it could kill him. Monsters where never meant to die, so the idea of necessity made him angry. He snarled silently. "Dam lioness, I don't have time for this shit?"

Part six, The culmination of fates and the beginning of the end.

"What do you think should be done then Robira?" Salyi asked as they made their way down the path to the waterhole. " I don't know but he's out of his dam mind!" Robira replied her voice near an angry yell. "He's got the whole pride baking in the sun doing shit because he says a ghost told him an army of tigers are coming. Tigers are solitary! They don't live in prides like us, and apparently these tigers are also invisible and don't leave tracks."  
"He's still the king Robira," A lioness behind them said gruffly.  
"I don't care! I tell you in five minutes we could find a rouge in the outlands no more crazy then Simba who in the very least would fuck us when we wanted it."  
"but what if he's right?" Salyi asked.  
"Right about what! Do you see any tigers here!" At least twenty surprised tigers sitting around the water hole looked up at the even more surprised lioness like she was crazy.

At noon the army of the tigers broke the horizon. Simba was aroused from a daze when the lionesses grumbling which had continued unabated for hours suddenly ceased He got up and checked the horizon wearily. A least a hundred tigers stood in tightly grouped, neatly organized ranks spanning the savanna. He scanned their ranks along with his lionesses for several minutes before it finally sunk in what he was looking at. "Holy shit." He said...finding himself completely in shock, as was the rest of the pride, that he had been right. "I think I liked being crazy better."

Yalee and her cubs sat next to Aride watching her prides reaction. They had apparently had some warning of his coming but from the looks of surprise and fear in their faces, they hadn't realized the scope of the forces allied against them. Yalee felt a knot growing in her stomach seeing her home behind the frontlines of an enemy force. She had been thinking it for days, but now she finally had to accept it. This would a war, a war where one side died, a war Simba had no hope to win. She looked over at Aride his expression emotionless, his gaze coldly calculating his enemies numbers and positions. " Please...Simba is good king..." She started but he cut her off gruffly.  
" Go lioness you and your children, I release you. Tell your king I will meet him alone in the field between our forces to discuss terms." Aride commanded flatly. She would have stayed and argued if she thought it had any hope of succeeding, instead sadly she nodded her understanding and gathering her two boys started to leave. " Yalee." He said. She stopped waiting. " Please...when this begins stay clear of the of battle. I wont be able to protect you anymore." She felt anger and sorrow battle within her at the same time, either, or both threatening to seize control. She fought to give no reaction and silently headed for her pride.  
Yalee was greeted with a hundred questions from the other frightened lionesses. Simba came rushing to her side a look of great concern on his face " Yalee are you all right?...Did they hurt you?" He asked a hint of panic in his voice. " I'm fine Simba...they didn't hurt us. We where well treated." she said. His worried expression didn't change. " Are you sure...?" Simba persisted. "I'm fine Simba. You have more important things to worry about. Their king is named Aride he wishes to meet with you alone between his army and the pride...to discuss terms he said." " ...your sure your all right." She stifled a laugh and he nodded that he understood. "I want you to go to the caves get some rest." he told her and headed for his front line.

The two kings entered the opening between their respective forces, approaching each other. As he neared him Simba found himself surprised that the tiger was not much larger then him. They met in the middle and the two kings examined one another. The tiger looked a little older then him, visibly battle hardened, to the point of appearing even worn. "You're Aride...leader of this army?" Simba asked. " I am. You would be Simba a assume?" the tiger answered. Simba felt himself a little intimidated by the look in the gray eyes glaring at him. " I am Simba. Why have you come to my land?" he asked  
"I intend to claim it on behalf of my people." the tiger said.  
"You expect me to let you do this?" Simba said a surge of anger giving him confidence.  
"You see behind me only one third my force king Simba. The other two thirds have seized your water sources and formed a perimeter between your rock and the fields in every direction. Thus you have three options. One, I will allow you and your pride to leave here, surrendering your lands to me. Two, you can go hide in your rock until you run out of food and water, or three you can fight me." the tiger king locked eyes with him. "We outnumber you and my army has never lost. If you choose to fight Simba you will be destroyed."  
"Suppose I don't believe you." Simba said.  
"Test me." the tiger king replied. They glared at each other for a moment.  
"We're done here." Simba said and turned back to his forces. No longer face to face with his enemy he felt his anxiety return "well...fuck." he said under his breath, as he made the walk back.

Another sleepless night, her third in row, had been spent learning what she needed to know. Aware of times passage only through the skylight in the ceiling. Her eyes burned dry and red, her body ached, and she could feel the pulse of power through the room as if the dead god's skull was trying to speak. Nala had learned more then she had wanted to, history, prophecy, magic long forgotten in the library of her own broken bloodline. "Exeteress." She said searching the shadows for her apprentice. The pantheress's blue eyes opened in dark in front of her. " I am about to defy the spirits, circles, ancestors, the dark, gods, dark gods, and any other incredibly powerful things we may or may not be aware of. I have no idea how they are going to react. I want you to know that your free to leave."  
"Understood my lady. I will stay, I am not afraid and have more then earned any punishment they could inflict."  
Nala nodded. "All right here we go." She drug her black claw across her other paw, drawing blood, chanting softly as it stained her pale fur. Using her bloody claw like a quill she began to write upon the stone floor. Overhead thunder began to rumble.

Yalee let Jihala take her cubs to go play with the others in the inner cavern and let herself collapse on the floor. Simba's frame soon appeared in the door. By his expression it was obvious things had not gone well. "...and?" she asked.  
" He says his army surrounds us and has control of the fields and water...I don't suppose he's bluffing?" Yalee shook her head sadly "No, he tells the truth." she informed him.  
"I was afraid of that." Simba sat sitting down beside her.  
"What will you do?" she asked, picking a thorn from his mane.  
"It appears we fight." he answered. Yalee felt her heart sink, her last far fetched hope now gone. She could see a spark in Simba's eyes as he thought of battle, possibly it was anger or indignation, maybe even something more noble. None of these comforted her. All ended the same. Simba was not a warrior. He was a good lion, a good king in peaceful times. But the cub inside him was too strong. She could see it him now, in the way he thought about problems, about his pride, his friends, mostly in the way he thought about Nala, all with the feverish, selfish heart of her young boys. It was apart of what made him good, but it also could never see the greater good, beyond those it loved. Simba would fight and he would fight bravely. But she knew whatever spark Simba held in his heart would be put out by the cold storm she had felt in Aride's. His fire was flickering and the cold was so very strong. Part of her wanted to beg Simba as she had of Aride another part told her it work about as well. He looked down at her affectionately. "No worries tonight...rest you've earned it." Simba said trying to smile. Now to comfort the rest of the pride he thought unhappily, heading back outside.

In the fields before the rock the armies prepared. Simba rearranged his lionesses to better fortify their position on the hills. The threat had at least made them far more willing to obey. Half his hunting party returned, injured, and confirmed the tiger's domination of his land. Salyi, her animosity gone, told him that they had encountered the tigers at the main watering hole. Robira had attacked, even hurt one of them, and she had died for it along with Hayii and Liata. Blood had already been spilled. The sun was begging to vanish behind dark clouds rolling out of the west and it was already starting to drizzle. A fact which did not help his or his prides moral.  
A line from a story his father had once told him came to mind. " So it begins, the earth will shake at the culmination of the fates. Wisdom the sky will rend,...and so our world will end." He couldn't remember the story it was from, or ever having remembered it before. Catching the look on the face of a nearby lionesses and regretted having said it out loud.

Across the felid Aride sat looking at lion's pride. Rain didn't bother him, whatever discomfort being wet brought him, it brought Simba the same discomfort. He was more then willing to play attrition with misery. Off his shoulder Galee explained the Aloss's skirmish at the water hole. One of his men had died from wounds he had received and he wanted reciprocity.  
"You killed three of theirs for your one." Aride said not even bothering to look at the irate warlord.  
"I had known him since he was a cub. He has a family in the east lands now I have to tell them he's dead and when I do I want to tell them I killed twenty lioness for his death! Why are we waiting for? We outnumber them we could crush them tonight!" Aride laid down and made himself comfortable.  
"Your right we could...but right now their still strong, alert, angry, determined to defend their home at all cost, and with the advantage of being the defender. We would win, but we will lose a lot in return. An unnecessary waste of lives. I am no more found of talking to widows then you. The lions have no way to gain food. They also lack the numbers to take shifts and still maintain a force capable of repelling us. So safely to say they will weaken quickly. All we have to do is wait and they will either be forced to attack us giving us the advantage or they will simply weaken to the point where we can wipe them aside." Aride explained. Galee found himself incapable of arguing.  
" You are right of course my king. Forgive me for my haste. I will return to my men and we will await your orders." Aride nodded slightly still not turning to face the warlord. Galee left trying to appear submissive; internally he was enraged, being talked to like some new recruit. He could barely restrain himself from trying to kill the self proclaimed king of the tigers right there. The thought of ripping out the condescending fucks jugular was tempting...But the cheetah would do worse and that eased his temper. A slight smile crossed his face.  
"Just a little longer now."

Nala's body shook exhausted from fatigue and loss of blood. Her white fur was half stained red from self inflicted wounds running from her paw, up her leg, all the way to her shoulder. Blood drawn runes spread from her to as far as she could reach. That had been the white lions fatal mistake "Should have read text better dip shit , always use your own blood." She had a headache. The painful words of dead god she couldn't understand whispering to her in her trance, for hours,...but it was done.  
"I won't live without him. You kill him and I'll bring the world down upon our heads." She said, mighty words, in a weak and tired voice, defying anything in any world that could hear her. As if in response lighting cracked above her, lighting from her storm. During it, very clearly, she had felt the seduction that had driven her grandfather insane. Though it wasn't justification for his evils, she could at least understand him now. In their veins was tainted blood. Blood that could be tracked all the way back to a power mad god, the ruler of the all storms. Sihadd was punished by his father for his greed with mortality. So he had fallen. Yet his power remained, its master's tortured sole eager for the company of his heirs. It whispered to her. It always had, though only here was it load enough hat she realized she could hear it. Promising it could be wielded if only one could defeat their mortal half. It had been thoughts of her mother, during the ceremony, thoughts of a gentler life she had once had, during the ceremony. They had saved her. So Nala daughter of Taka, son of Rohad, son of Raganata, son of Ivinstar, and all the way back to Sihadd, had come through the trance whole...but tired, very tired. She walked from her rune over to where Exeteress lay. "We're done." She said and collapsed by the pantheress instantly asleep. Exeteress looked up with anxiety at the sound of thunder. Strange thoughts entered her mind, of the past. She couldn't remember his face but she could hear her father's voice, telling her stories. How it would come during a storm...the end of all things, odd to remember them now, here. Her parents had died when she was so young .She hadn't realized she remembered anything of them, till now. Clearer memories came she remembered, Tonase, her mate telling stories to their son.  
"Why must I remember this." She whispered to no one, not wanting to wake Nala. " If I can not change it, was purpose does it have but to torture me."  
It made her sad, and that made her angry, to have worked so hard and so long for discipline only to have it breached by something as unsubstantiated as a memory. She hated the ancestors and the spirits, demanding things but then denying her the ability to accomplish them. The pantheress looked down at Nala already having nightmares. They tortured her the same way.  
"...fucking bastards."

"Tell me, do you have mate?...any what are they, chicks? Right?"  
The hawk made strange squeaking sounds at him. He couldn't really understand bird...any bird language... At all, and had no idea if the bird could understand him. However he continued undaunted anyway.  
"Do you tell them you love them? Do you tell them stories...or did you; I guess would be more accurate. Where you lying...did you really hate them? The bird flopped around on the ground at the cheetah's feet. It had taken him nearly twenty minutes to carefully amputate the once beautiful bird's wings. To be honest he was amazed it was still alive.  
"Know why I did this to you?" more squeaks  
"...their wasn't one, none whatsoever. I don't know you. I can't eat you, not that I really want to. "  
Its squeaks changed tone. The birds remaining feathers soaking in its own blood as it flopped feebly on the stone.  
"You don't say...cause I cant understand you. That being because your language is a complicated, SERIES OF STUPID SKEAKY NOISES!... anyway please try to stay on subject. To hunt is to kill for necessity, I assume you hunt mice or something like that. Vengeance would be, mind you in a broad sense, killing for passion...but what do you think it is to kill for no reason? Not because your hungry or because your angry or because anyone's paying you, not even because it excites you. To kill completely abstractly, so as the kill exceeds the effect it has on you. What does it then become?" The cheetah leaned forward excitedly.  
" Maybe you don't think that's possible?"  
Mercifully the life finally left the birds little body.  
"Hey!" He poked the corpse with a claw. "I was talking to you." He looked around annoyed. "You better hope you don't have a mate or any chicks because I'm going to find your nest and if you do I'll ask them... Stupid little bastered!"

Part seven, Of war.

The days wore on as the two armies stared at each other. Endless rain made water supply little problem but the pride had no food. Simba and his lionesses where strong...but they had cubs, twelve at the moment and children need food. On this fact both he and every lioness agreed. They would have to attack , fn the least just to break the line. To facilitate the defenses of pride rock he had divided the lionesses up into three groups and assigned each group a leader. Late afternoon he arranged a meeting in the main cave with two of them Riniya, and Salyi along with Yalee to discuss the far more difficult question of how the attack should be made. The third leader Diara being left to tend to the front.  
"This is how I see it. We have to get through or we are going to die. An attack against the main front will fail they outnumber us three by at least two to one. That leaves us with the outer ring . The question now is where and how...barring any better suggestion of course." Simba said, weariness evident in his voice. Both lion and lionesses just looked at each other silently, minds not quite working. The three of them where a miserable looking group exhausted and dripping wet. Yalee sat back somewhat ashamed to be dry.  
"According to our scouts the farther south their line goes the weaker it gets." Salyi said at last.  
" ...but that has to be intentional the farther south we send our forces the less likely we are to be able to respond to an attack from our front." Riniya responded.  
" So you think we should attack somewhere in between?" Simba said.  
" no..." Riniya said. "If he bothered to set such an obvious trap then he must think we're stupid enough to fall for it. That tiger son of bitch thinks we're just a bunch of gazelle hunters fine. So we make it look like we're going attack his line to the south. He will respond and then we attack his line some where else. Somewhere unexpected."  
"The only place not expecting to be attacked IS the front." Salyi criticized.  
"All right so not there but real close. Where they still feel their safe." Simba pondered the approach.  
"We don't have enough lionesses to feign an attack. We're going to have enough trouble with the real attack." He said.  
"We don't have enough lionesses for any attack of any kind. Any conventional attack will fail... I think subterfuge is our only chance." Riniya persisted.  
"Ok...you convinced me." Salyi said. "I'll lead the feint." She said  
" Wait a minute I still think this is too risky." Simba objected. The lionesses ignored him.  
" I'll ask for up to five volunteers." Salyi said sitting up, water still running off her pelt.  
"It would be to dangerous to send that few of you. That far down we wouldn't be able to offer you any support." Riniya said.  
" No more can be afforded with any hope of the main attack working." Salyi replied. She laughed " That and lets face it everyone who comes with me is going die."  
"Are you sure? It was my idea I'll do it." Riniya said.  
" Robira's dead you're the best hunter in the pride now. You need to be with however gets through."  
"But..." Simba started.  
" All right...we do it, when?" Riniya asked.  
" We get weaker by the minute. " Salyi said.  
"...one hour then." Salyi nodded in agreement and both lionesses got up and headed back out into the storm. Simba and Yalee where left in the cave looking at each other. What really annoyed him was that despite the risk, they'd convinced him.  
" There's no point in me being here. Nobody listens to me!" Simba complained falling them out.

Aride watched the lion's shift in the dark. They must of course realize by now that he could out wait them. They would attack. It wasn't long before an excited runner brought him conformation.  
"Sir the lions are moving, the Vileye are reporting their section of the lines under are under attack." the tiger eagerly reported. The look of a youthful warrior's hunger for glory evident in his eyes.  
"Simba's a fool." Aride said to himself.  
"Sir may I..." the runner began.  
" Go" Airde cut him off. "Go kill lions." and the youth took off. "Go get yourself killed boy" Aride finished talking to no one. It suddenly occurred to him that this war might end tonight...the last war he would ever have to fight. The thought gave him a surge of energy washing away all weariness. A growled order brought his personally chosen elite strike force waiting nearby. He gave some quick instructions to his captain who would be commanding the front lines, and then was down his line towards the south side. His men struggling to keep up.  
As he ran the length of his line he could see his orders already being carried out. The thin line apparently falling back...that is to a pre set point at which point the feigned retreat would end reinforced from the rest of the line, as the sides closed in to entrap the attackers. His southern line was thin but it was also made of the Vileye and the Mothos Tigers from the desert and the fastest of foot in his army.  
As he ran the length of his line he could see his orders already being carried out. The thin line apparently falling back...that is to a pre set point then the feigned retreat would end reinforced from the rest of the line. The sides would close and the attackers would be trapped.

Salyi had asked for five lionesses to join her, the entirety of the pride had volunteered. The narrowing down had been done using simple criteria, no cubs, no relatives, no one to miss you when you don't come back. The six of them tore across the field directly at he surprised tigers. They screamed as they ran, mounting every frustration and misery of their entire lives on the heads of their enemy until they where utterly enraged beyond rational thought. She felt the initial impact reverberated through her body. It was a wonderful feeling, her body screaming out in pain and satisfaction. Like sex in a single moment. The tiger she had slammed into slumped to the ground beneath her and she carried on. Unthinking her path was one of throats and arteries, seeing only what needed to die and how, her surroundings reappeared only when she found herself lacking another target. Beside her stood three of the other lionesses. Two where gone. Strangely the memory of sitting around pride rock, spending hours, grooming and fretting about patches of fur that wouldn't lay down, went through her head. That hadn't been that long ago, two maybe three days. Look at them now completely covered in bloodstained mud. Diota the lioness closest her, her entire life a petite prissy thing, was drooling blood lust her eyes frighteningly wild. Before four angry lionesses the great tiger army was fleeing.

Aride found the southern end of his line a confusing place. Some tiger's fleeing, others advancing, and the enemy whom had caused this mess lost in the chaos they had caused. Angrily he gave orders, trying to pick out leaders of his units as he made his way thought them. A tiger ran by him screaming something and he knocked him cold himself just to shut him up. He herd a load roar and every tiger but him divided. Aride, finding himself facing a berserked lionesses running straight at him. Years of fighting had taught him the weakness of anger. It made you predictable. She leapt jumping at him, hungry jaws seeking his throat. They always went for the throat. He waited calmly, till she was nearly on him. A quick drop of his shoulder made her miss, her own momentum carrying her over his back.

Slayi struggled to turn in mid air, back to her opponent, able to think of nothing but attack. She hit and a quick sensation of pain brought her back to her senses, followed by a strange numbing sensation. Disoriented she was on the ground. She started to stand and found herself unable, like something was holding her down. Glancing down she discovered that her fall, weight combined with momentum, had brought her down by chance on a old tree stump hidden by the grass. Several branches protruding from it's base having found their way deep inside her. The sharp end of at least one branch protruding slightly from her side. She looked at confused for what seemed like a long time before realizing the small sharp end sticking out meant the branch had stabbed completely through her. The tigers standing around her made no move to attack her. They where almost as surprised as she. Salyi recognized the one she had attacked. "Dam" she thought would have been helpful to have killed him. The thought almost made her laugh but she didn't know why. She wasn't afraid, or angry just slightly annoyed at being robbed a glorious death in battle by the random placement of nature. It occurred to her that she was last of her group. Her friends must have died behind her. They had taken an oath together before they had made their charge. Even bound it in blood, cutting their paws like she'd heard the rouge lions did.  
" Remember our Pride and our children. Those who die, forget them." They had said." There is only forward till you join them."

His trap had been sprung by nothing but a few lionesses. Before the runner's voice became audible, yelling at him across the jumbled lines, he already knew Simba was attacking. Not here somewhere else, somewhere unprepared. Simba was not the fool he had thought him to be. He found himself running again. His strike force having just reached him where left behind again. The runner struggling to keep up while telling him the location of the attack. Simba was attacking high up, near his main force, where his least experienced men lounged lazily, overconfident in their numbers. The runner fell behind and it was just him. Some battles could be won through tactics, others through strength, but some had to won by sheer will.

While a thin line remained at the hills, shifting back and forth and using the darkness to obscure their small numbers, Simba and the others slipped down and around. They moved slowly, low to the ground so they where hidden by the tall savanna grass. A tactic gazelle hunters knew quite well.  
The captain of the section listened slightly amused at the reports of an attack in the Vileye area's. "Bastards" He thought standing and stretching wearily, a large amount of water dripping off his red and orange pelt. "They get to have all the excitement while none of the rest of us have shit to do." He looked over at his second in command with an annoyed look on his face. The other tiger nodded his head in agreement. Turning back to the front a muddy paw struck him in the side of the head.  
Simba roared, his blow striking the tiger with all his weight behind it. The tiger was knocked into another tiger standing behind him and they both went down. Simultaneously all around him lioness pounces found their targets. Simba was surprised when the tiger he had struck started to get back up. In his fighting experience he rarely fought anything that could withstand a full blow from a lion. Their just wasn't any predators that big in the pride lands on a normal basis. A Second strike, brought down hard on the back of the skull put the tiger down again, this time to stay and just for good measure a lioness ran over him on her way to another target. Momentum was the key for the entire offensive. He and his lionesses persisted attacking everything in their path their aggression in turn further disrupting their opponents. Simba found lionesses where quite good at intimidation. After a few kills a perfectly friendly lionesses become crazed, ears back, a wild expression, and blood dripping from barred jaws. A frightening thing. He was doing his fair share of the fighting, being bigger and stronger then them, but he wasn't enjoying it nearly as much as they seemed to be.  
The attack was going well and they where within ten feet of breaking through when Diara came flying out of a scuffle. The lionesses fell at Simba's feet missing most of her neck. The sight stopped him in his tracks. Two more lionesses came out of the crowd. Bleeding from wounds on their backs and shoulders and ran back to the safety of the rest of the lionesses coming up. Aride came fighting out of the panicked mass. Striking lionesses and his own men alike to make his way through. He stopped in front of Simba blood visible on his teeth and claws. Behind their leader the tiger starting to repair their ranks. The lion momentum had been lost. Simba quickly took stock of who he had around them. This was it, he had to act immediately. All around him where tigers immobilized only by lack a of cohesion and confusion, problems which would soon be fixed, and then this battle would be over. He saw Riniya off to his side and yelled at her and what lionesses where with her to go. Then he charged the tiger king, A dwindling band of lionesses behind him. Simba was within inches of striking when he saw Aride shift his weight, memories of the great strength of last tiger he had fought entered his mind, and he decided to rethink a blind charge, stopping his attack just short. The sudden stop threw Aride off, and the tiger's claws just missed his face. Aride stumbling with the missed attack. Simba reared up on his hind legs and brought both paws down on the tigers head. The blows striking, he raked up tearing away flesh. The tiger responding by sweeping his feet out from under him sending both to the muddy ground. Aride managed to get turned first and Simba felt claws tear down his side. He kicked back blindly and rolled away. Standing he found himself amidst retreating lionesses. Aride was getting up. It was done there was nothing to be but join the retreat. To stay now would just get him killed. As they fled a quick glance over his back revealed Riniya and at least one other lioness's tan pelt disappear into the grass behind Aride's line.  
"At least they made it. We've certainly paid for it."

Nala awoke from a long sleep. The sound of her storm raging overhead. The first thought that came to mind was that it was time to leave. Time enough had been spent in this dark place. A quick glance found her black furred guardian standing over her like a careful sentry. "Did you sleep?" Nala asked.  
"I slept some my lady." Exeteress said. Nala doubted it. Stretching she sat up.  
"Thank you." Nala said appreciatively  
"For what?"  
" You've been a good student Ex." Nala said.  
"Thank y...been?"  
"Its time for us to leave this place Ex."  
" Yes my lady."  
" Then when we get back I want you to leave me." The panthers looked to her worriedly.  
"My lady...why? What will I do?"  
"I want you to go live a real life somewhere. I've been a horrible teacher Ex  
" I don't..." The pantheress began.  
"I've never taught you a thing I believe..." Nala smiled, gently caressing her troubled companions black fur.  
"...but." The pantheress stammered  
" You want to learn, here's all I know to date. To live a life only to survive is worse then having died. The most important things are those which give us reason to live, and no amount of power can ever give us that Exeteress. That's all the small amount of wisdom I possess. These powers... I could teach you them, but they'll never give you what you want."  
" but..."  
" Let no one blame you for what I've done, your not responsible. "  
" My lady I beg you to let me stay at your side."  
" And I command you to leave."  
"All the power you posses and you would give it up for love?" Exeteress asked.  
"Yea." Nala replied  
"You plan to die for him don't you?"  
" If I have to."  
The black cat bowed her head.  
"My lady you have been an excellent teacher."

It begins in the darkness of the woods, small trickles of water forming streams, spurned to life by an unnatural rain. Slowly finding their way to a dead river. He feels it. The ancient crocodile sitting beneath the surface of the pool that forms his prison. A shift in Gaia itself. A convulsion of the circles. Though it was as yet, ever so slight and slow he could feel it begging. The rise of water for the first time in so long. The thought of the food and females to be found in the free waters would have made him smile had he been capable of such a thing. He chants softly his words beyond the ears of any creature of the land, reverberating in the murky water, out unto the water hidden beneath the earth...waiting. What power age has brought him he uses to aid the magic of the lionesses. " Return O dead rivers of this world...bring me freedom at last."

Simba's lines barley defensible before where now even more undermanned. The lionesses had suffered the complete range of injuries. At least two, currently in the main chamber, would probably be dead by morning. Even those with comparatively minor wounds risked getting them infected in the mud and rain, having to maintain the lines. According to his count nine had been lost with his attack not including Slayi's who never returned or however many Riniya's had suffered. They had made it through but how they would get back he had no idea. He looked down on the dismal night from the ledge as Yalee attentively cared for the large slices, Aride's claws had made across his ribs. "Did you hurt him?" She asked quietly. He didn't look back, lost in thought. "I hope so...I put some pretty good cuts in his face." Simba smiled slightly with a hint of pride. Yalee said nothing. "You where with him Yalee, learn anything." He asked.

"He didn't say much." She responded with a tinge of guilt.

He sighed, "Any idea how I beat him?"  
Simba asked her. She found herself not wanting to answer. There was a moment where she tired to say nothing, before loyalty and guilt made her admit her opinion. "You have to kill him Simba." Yalee said reluctantly. "We are not fighting the tigers. Where fighting Aride. His army follows him. They will to the end. But without him they are just bands of petty warlords and rouges." Simba stretched. "That could be difficult."  
"He came here to win or die. Nothing can deter him. If we could hold against his forces for ten years he'd still keep coming" Yalee said.  
" I thought you said he didn't say much."  
" He had a manner of great confidence. Despite what little I saw of him"  
Simba nodded to tired to really think about it.  
"...must have. I know your not one easily impressed by kings."

Aride stood up on the flat plains a little behind his lines looking down at his objective. Blood ran down his face from parallel groves carved into his face from ear to jaw, mixing with the water running continuously from his pelt. His eyes where faded, his conscious somewhere else. Carefully hidden, his body shook slightly shivering in the warm night. On occasion a nervous runner or scout would come and report various news to him, casualties, politics, structure of the lion lines. They would each explain their bit to him without being looked at, or receiving any indication they'd been heard. Then carefully they would shrink off as fast as could look respectable. In reality he wasn't angry, all the better they thought he was though. In reality any emotional demeanor was only a facade for the careful calculations of his mind. Tonight his mind made its way through the lion's defenses weighing strengths and weaknesses and comparing them to his own. He had underestimated Simba, that couldn't be allowed again. A pain like a headache broke his thoughts and his mind drifted to the lioness and her cubs. They had come unbidden, he tried to dismiss them and found they wouldn't leave. Stubborn thoughts. Giving up, he left his plans for tomorrow and allowed his mind to replay what it wanted. "Dam" he said to himself. This was a bad time to start showing weakness. He didn't occur to him that the shivering had stopped.

Part seven, The River and the Hunt

It rains in the pride lands. It has rained before, both longer and harder. Its inhabitants take no notice of the balances of the earth as it groans beneath them. High to north in another land the monsoons have already began. Down the great river storms of otherwise no consequence feed the rains from the north with their contributions. Quietly the waters plan an insurrection of the land. The rivers coming together to meet at last in the great savanna's, in the pride lands, where it rains no longer nor harder then it has before. The careful scheming of the water sprits unaware to all but the ancient crocodile listening from his little pool.

They didn't stop running till they reached the Yinidee creek high in the north fields, collapsing in the wet weeds, panting, too tired to care anymore whether they where safe. Riniya's whole body hurt from a long run she had started exhausted. She ran a paw across the top of her hurting head and pulled it back covered iin blood. In her reflection she found her left ear completely split. A few days ago she might have cared about the detrimental effect on her appearance. Today it was of minimal concern. The cut between her shoulder blades worried her more; it was deep and wasn't bleeding. That probably wasn't good she thought, Yalee would know. Eight had charged that line, three had made it. Her, Kinia and Heari. Their energy was spent, and they where hurt. They where supposed to find food in a storm with no idea how to get it back again. Last she had seen Simba had been in retreat, their might not even be anything to go back to. The tigers could be in their caves right now resting, the pride dead or subject to worse torments, the cubs already killed. Realistically they should probably flee, go find another pride...The thought died away quickly. She would return, even to die. First they needed food. She forced her self up. The others didn't move. Trying to walk she fell to the ground again, it couldn't be fought, her eyes closed, they needed rest.

Dawn brought no light, it brought rain, rising mud, and if luck held reciprocity.  
Simba was awaken by the prodding paw of a lioness. He was covered beyond recognition in mud, soaked to bone, and felt worse then he had the night before. "...of for the love of...am I dead yet?" He groaned. "You might want to see this." she said a hint of urgency in her voice. He forced himself to his paws against the sucking pull of the wet ground determined to bury them all alive. He scanned the lines to find the tigers forming themselves into groups. " Well shit..."

A young warrior carefully drew a line beneath his right eye. Two others decorating his front paws. Paint made from mud and his own blood provided by the wounds Simba had given him the night before. They chanted softly, the hunter's triangle and runes of protection and strength. Subtlety was done. He had planned for weeks to wait out the lions. A tactic that would avoid unnecessary deaths. Simba however had earned his respect in his aggression. Closing his eyes he let his mind free to the howling of the winter storms winds. Today he was the tiger whose soul wandered those mountains. Today he cared for no living thing. Aride's face became a snarl. Today his respect was a dangerous thing to have. The runes finished he drew his claws through the mud feeling his heart rate rise. "Today I come for you my love" he told a ghost waiting for him in a mountain cave far way. The combined roar of fourteen tiger bands shook the ground and echoed across this plains. The sound of them charging soon to follow.

His father had been a warrior. Mufasa probably would no what to do right now. Simba was in shock. His only thoughts being that complaining child's voice wandering why battles had to start so early. His lionesses looked at him visibly frightened. These lines where lost "The hell with this...Fucking run!" He shouted, not a lionesses hesitating.

They made it to the path up to the caves, Simba intentionally falling behind so that when they turned he would be in the front. They scrambled up it heading for a section where the walls would rise up and create a bottle neck. By the time they reached it the tigers where only feet from them. Shouting orders Simba turned to make his stand and caught a leaping tiger square in the chest knocking him backwards onto rock and lioness. The tiger still standing began pummeling his face screaming irately in a language he could make no sense of. Lionesses tried to come to his aid, jumping on his attacker but did just about as much harm stepping on him as they helped. Other tigers joined the first as they surged up the path. Simba just struggled not to get torn open by the many slashing claws as both sides fought literally standing on his chest. A surge of lionesses moved over him and he was momentarily relieved of tiger weight, Paws grabbed a hold of his mane and painfully he was brought to his feet. Just in time to dodge a blow and beat an attacking tiger into the ground. That tiger of course immediately being replaced by another.

Yalee came out of the cave that served as the prides nursery to see a wave of tigers coming up the side path to the rock. No time to react she braced for impact and bared her teeth. The lead tigers paw rose, poised to break her neck, and he disappeared into tan fur. A lioness landing on him from a higher ledge. Yalee stumbled back in surprise. Two more Lionesses leapt down and they dove into the wave of tigers. Her senses returned, she knew them all three mothers with cubs in the cave behind her.  
Even battle crazed, they would hold for only so long. She ran for the cave. Turning the corner she slid to a stop reaching the cubs and yelled at the largest ones to grab the smaller ones. Grabbing three of the youngest up by the scruffs of their necks in her mouth she led the frightened band form their cave. Out on the ledges again a quick glance saw the tan of the lionesses disappearing into an ocean of red and black stripes. She moved the young down the ledge counting them as they went, they went up. She would take them to the high ledges, narrow ledges where they would have to fight her no more then two at a time.

On the edge of where the forest meets the land. On the highest hill save for the rock she watched the work of fate. " So now you call for my love's end..." she whispered." So easily you give up on him." Her green eyes rolled up into head and she raised a pale paw to the sky. "Having come so far...you think I fear the end"

Their hold was failing. Simba found himself locked in continues combat with an ever replenishing line of red and black. His line lacked such vitality, and very slowly he was losing ground. Just swinging at movement he looked up out of the fight. They had about ten feet more of the walls, then they would be on the main ledge and their would be no more holding the assault. Claws raked down his bad shoulder and he turned to bit down into a tigers neck, tearing through vital arteries and he went down. Painted paws took that tiger's place. Simba struck out not yet looking up, missed, and took a shot to the ear that put him down. Stunned he failed to ward off blows raining down his back and head. No lionesses free to aid him this time. Then their was a sound like the ground had blown apart, a flash of light and heat, then silence. Simba was overcome by the sensation that he was flying...then the feeling of hitting stone. His body tried to go to sleep on him but he fought it off and got up painfully. His vision returning, he realized it had been momentarily lost, and that the fight had been temporarily stopped. Lionesses, and tigers knocked down all around him. Across from him Aride was getting up appearing equally stunned. A lighting bolt having hit just between them. Both kings shrugged off their disorientation and started towards each other again. A rumble in the ground stopped them in their tracks. They shared a look of mutual confusion.

Those who saw it first did not believe it. Lion, lionesses and tiger all stopping to stare in frightened awe. Long since forgotten, its path buried. None of this generation had ever heard of the great river Kaeit, which one ruled the plains. Whose water's first carved the pride rock from cliffs. A wave of water hit the rock with enough force to shake the stone. The muddy current wrapping itself around the lions home like a great constrictor before continuing on off across the plains. Simba watched the tiger king and every one behind him vanish into a muddy tide. Rising up the path to cleanse the rock of its foes, stopping just beneath his paws. Simba let his legs gave out from underneath him and he collapsed stunned and exhausted, lionesses doing the same. "What the fuck?" The lionesses nearest him said at last. "It's Nala" he answered. " She helping us."

Aride pulled himself onto the newly created shore, spitting a mixture of blood and muddy water. All around him remnants of his army fought the hard current to pull themselves to land. In his minds eyes he was laying in that snow drift again, broken, beaten. "Not again." he forced himself painfully to his feet.

Ringing out clearly even with amongst a great deal of noise. Simba heard one angry roar. Yalee's words came to mind. "He lives..."

Through great effort Aride had managed to reconstruct the tiger line in less then an hour, once again surrounding Simba's home. Simba watched from his ledges above. He even thought he could make out the tiger king, down their, running back and forth up and down the growing wall. Apparently fixing problems Simba couldn't see. Their was water now, it made for an excellent defense. He and the lionesses where far more comfortable. Three or four lionesses being able to guard an entrance left the rest free to rest in the dry caves, The water of course kept them in as well. A fact that slowly premeditated its way through his pride and ruined their celebratory mood for having survived the day.  
Now it was truly whoever could wait the longest. Whether or not that actually was Aride down there he saw, Simba knew wherever he was he knew that too. It had been two days now since the tigers had come. Simba figured he had about three more, before he and his pride began to really weaken, in about five to six the weakest would begin dying. He looked out towards the west, wandering where Nala was. He felt guilty, because he was supposed to know what to do. His father would have known what to do. For the last three days he had been trying to pretend he was his father. He always did in crises. Mufasa had been a king all Simba really wanted to do was run off and hide, pretend that the problem wasn't real...  
Yalee sat next to Simba not saying anything. She stared down at their enemy without seeing anything. She was sad, angry and a hint of guilty...she just couldn't decide who she had betrayed. She could have told Simba a great deal more, maybe it would have helped, saved lives even. Yet Aride had been kind to her and she had told Simba to kill him...How well could I really know him? She asked herself. We only talked a few times, I was only around him for what two three days. It didn't help. She wished she could talk to him again. Ask him what he had told his tigers to do had they reached that cave, reached her and the pride's cubs. A shiver ran down her back. Then just as much she wanted to ask him if he was all right. A tear ran down her face and it made her angry.

The warlord of the Sigiti had threatened to leave and he had hit him hard enough in the head to break his neck. That had shut the rest up, even Galee...It was cold, so very cold. On him and him alone, invisible to all others, it wasn't raining. Instead snow fell upon his pelt, slowly burying him. A phantasmal wind calling his name. Aride was sitting on a snow dune far away, as he had once before. He glared up at the rock, where he was certain Simba looked down upon him, his eyes glowing as pale as his hallucenary blizzard.

It was Galee and three others. Galee always had to have others around him, he was a chronic coward. They meandered their way into the clearing he was temporarily living in. He leaned back against the boulder he was sitting on, preparing himself to be bored. Galee nodded at him a response he didn't return, the others kept their distance this time.  
" ...And what do you want?"  
" Some lionesses broke through our line. Presumably their out here somewhere looking for food. Aride sent us to apprehend them" The tiger explained  
He smiled. It made Galee nervous and he liked that.  
"And you cant find them?"  
The tiger tried to look offended.  
"A band of pampered lioness whores of course we could...just thought you'd have more fun doing it."  
Galee faked a laugh, he didn't, causing the tiger to awkwardly stop."  
" If you could make it look like we caught them and..."  
That time he did laugh.  
"I should fuck the whole thing up then?"  
" ...Just don't leave enough of the bodies intact that he can figure it out all right?"  
His chuckling ended and he glared at the tiger  
" Did your parents love you Galee?"  
" Uhmm"... Galee stepped back uneasily.  
"So...we're just going to go now...Have fun." The tiger mumbled and took off as fast as one could move with their dignity. He laughed some more.

The lionesses wandered the north fields. Tracking was impossible, the continues rain marring all tracks. Her direction was near at random. Her pelt was soaked, her head and paws hurt. ...and she hadn't eaten in three days now. Coming out of the grass back onto a herd path she couldn't seem to avoid, her own tracks still visible in the mud. "Fuck this." she groaned miserably. Heari sat down in the mud. If Riniya and Kinia where doing as well as she was, then the whole pride would starve. A hundred plus tigers and constant rain was a great way to clear out every herd for miles. She ran a paw across her face streaking even more mud through her pale fur. "Dam I h..." she stopped, staring intently at the ground. Her tracks already, filling with water, where not alone...another animal had been following them, paws with extended claws, another cat. She felt her self tense up, turning around she scanned the grasslands. In her head she calculated the timing; she couldn't have made those tracks more then ten minutes ago. "Where the hell are the others?" A stick cracked somewhere nearby. "Cant panic." She scolded herself, breathing deeply she started down the path towards where Riniya and the others should be, cautiously scanning the grass. Another stick broke, She took three more steps and then broke into a sprint. Bolting down the path she looked nervously over her shoulder for her purser, nothing. She leapt a mud hole and nearly slipped on the slick ground, regaining her balance refusing to slow down. Then spots...She tripped landing face first her momentum carrying her over, only to land hard on her back. Panicked she tried to get to her feet and slipped again, A pain shooting through her back leg. Looking down she found her ankle badly lacerated, the wound was deep and bleeding heavily. Scrambling on the ground she turned, expecting a tiger to attack her from behind at any moment. Instead about twenty feet down the path sat a skinny cheetah waiting for her. A wave of relief washed over her. Just a stupid cheetah. She snarled, in response he just looked at her, his paw tapping lightly against the ground. "well...Bring it you little bitch!" She roared at him. He smiled at her, a strange smile that made her fur stand on end, and quietly vanished into the grass.

Riniya and Kinia headed to meet Heari as of yet empty pawed. For safety they had agreed to meet every three hours "Suppose she's caught anything." Kinia asked and then chuckled at her own question.  
" Heari couldn't track food on a good day." Riniya replied.  
" So why'd you take her with us?"  
" I didn't, she was with Simba just happened to be standing with us when we went for the break."  
They came into a clearing to find Heari laying in the middle of in a pool of blood.  
" what the...!"  
Rinya rushed to her side. At her touch the lionesses rolled over her face wild with panic.  
" No!...Riniya, O ancestores!. Go get out of her!" she screamed trying to push her away.  
" Stop it!" she ordered roughly. " Its okay we're hear to help you." Kinia said trying to sound calm, as she scanned the area. Riniya fought the frightened lionesses to examine her. Her every ankle had been slashed, she had apparently crawled here, her blood being diluted by the rain leading off into the grass.  
" LISTEN TO ME! Heari pushed her off again, and snarled. " The blood...It's a trail, now I've led him to you...Leave me, go...FUCKING GO!" Heari broke into sobbing. " Who?" Riniya demanded trying to remain calm. Kinia was growing nervous pacing the clearing. " Lead who to us? " Rinyia looked up at Kinia in bewilderment. " I don't..." Kinia looked confused, apparently not noticing the cheetah sitting right next to her. Kinia was still looking at her for an answer, the little cat watching them both with an amused look. At last she made her self cry out " Kin..." Not even able to finish her name the cheetah reached out matter of factly and slit her throat. Riniya watched Kinia's face contort as she finally noticed her attacker, blood pouring from her wound, she turned to him surprised, gurgling, trying to say something and then fell at his feet.

Enraged Riniya was already in the air mid pounce determined to crush his fragile little frame in one strike. A blur obfuscated his form and she hit nothing but the ground. She screamed out as a blow struck her claws raking across her face. She stumbled back clutching her wound. Blood pooling up instantly around her paw, running into her eyes, she couldn't see anything, the wound was deep and her face throbbed. Forcing her paw away she managed to look up expecting to be attacked again. " By the ancestors!" She moaned falling down, blood running down her pelt. The cheetah just sat looking at her with that same arrogant amused look. He was holding up his front paw stained with her blood, one of her eyes poached on his claw. " Hello what's your name?" he said smiling at her. She recoiled back, too horrified to make herself stand. The cheetah laughed. " Straight to business then huh? Tell you what I'll make you a deal. Cut out the other one yourself and I'll let you live."  
Heari threw herself at him. The cheetah dodged turning to give a look aggravation at the distraction. " GO!" Heari screamed, this time Riniya listened. From her one eye she watched the cheetah effortlessly dodging bites from the prone lionesses. Already hating herself for it, Riniya was running in the opposite direction, taking the distraction, leaving Heari to die. Panic brought adrenaline drove her legs as she ran through the savanna towards pride rock. Rain and blood kept filling her now one and only eye nearly blinding her. The other side of her face throbbing with pain. Across the open fields she heard Heari's death shriek and never looked back.

The grass swayed about her in the wind. Phantoms danced about her, a ghost with impossible speed. He would draw near at times allowing her to see him, forcing her to change direction. Already her heart was pounding and her breath grew short. He was herding her, exhausting her. Riniya was on the verge of collapsing, abandoning herself to the horrors she had seen intended, in the eyes of the cheetah devil. He was just playing with her like a young lionesses might her first gazelle. She couldn't fight him, couldn't outrun him...a rational thought fought its way into her frightened mind.  
Nothing moving that fast could track. A quick wipe of her face temporarily stopped the trail of blood she was leaving, she stopped suddenly and changed directions, diving into tall grass, and thorns, changing directions again. She began to leap distances, leaving holes in the dent she was creating in the grass. She stepped in every puddle she could find. An entire life of hunting she knew everything that could make tracking difficult.  
The phantoms seemed to fall behind, but it was hard to tell. She froze in her tracks for a second in case he was predict her movements. Then began again in another direction. In the distance ahead she began to hear the sound of running water and it became her destination. Her energy nearly spent she took off for it in a straight line hoping she had put enough distance behind her it wouldn't be noticed. If she could find a creek following it would mask all trail. Breaking through at last, she found not a creek of a full fledged river. Riniya skidded to a stop terrified she might be lost., their wasn't supposed to be a river here. " FUCK!" she said pacing nervously eyeing the rain enraged current. " fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck" Behind her she heard the grass move, fear finished the argument and she leapt into the water.

He came to a stop on the bank just in time to watch the lionesses disappear into the dark water. For a moment he watched to see if she might emerge nearby. His paw tapped nervously on the ground. Annoyed he willed it to stop, not noticing that the motion was just taken up by another paw. She wasn't coming out here and he sure as hell wasn't going in. Didn't much like swimming. Oh well who gave a shit, he thought. If she doesn't drown she's headed for Galee's section of the line anyway and if that fat warlord can't handle one half blind lionesses. Still his paw kept rhythm, besides he had to cut the other two into small enough pieces.  
The cold water was numbing, the current overpowering. She gave herself over to it, being drug along by the muddy tide. Her consciences began to drift in out, transcendence or shock. A river which wasn't supposed to exist carrying her to an unknown destination, it was like dreaming except she was drowning at the same time...

Part eight, The challenge

" Simba...we found Riniya, literally in the river. Our guards on the left path pulled her out of the current. She alive but Yalee says she's hurt pretty bad. No sign of any of the others." A lioness told him dutifully. Simba watched the rain. He was really starting to hate rain.  
As he entered the side cave that the pride had been using to keep the injured, Yalee came out to meet him a solemn look on her face. " She's asleep, I'd rather you didn't wake her." she told him, he nodded in agreement. Riniya lay on a bed of grass in the cave curled up like a sleeping cub. She was covered in a variety of cuts and bruises, dried blood visible against her tan pelt. Her worst injuries was a deep cut on her upper back and most noticeably the missing of one eye along with slashes cut all the way to the bone down her face. Simba looked down at her. It was frightening how fast one could become accustomed to horrors.  
"we're done then..." He said " Their will be no food coming. Aride has but to wait until we starve." Yalee scowled at him " They don't need to hear you say that." she hissed at him. "They already know Yalee." Her expression didn't change and he stopped arguing. " Alright...I know, your right." he ceded. "I just wish morale still mattered."

Aride stirred sucking in the cold air and exhaling deeply always expecting to see his breath. The storm demanded victory and he was close. Simba was done. Groggily he got to his feet. Sleep was easy it was rest that was hard. He looked out over his army, guards visible along the new river, bands asleep all around him. Not three hours ago Galee had reported that Simba's hunting party had been found and killed. They had been the lion's last hope of holding out. Now in a couple days time the lions would starve or surrender. The war was over. Just another victory, he'd been fighting wars for six years now and had done worst things. He had never cared before. That winter storm still raged, but something had quieted it, just slightly. Enough that every now and then he could hear his own thoughts over the howl of the wind. None of them would surrender, they would all choose to die. She would die, as would her cubs. Her two boys she had fought so hard to protect. With a wave of his paw he caught the attention of an aid.  
"Fetch me a runner"

Yalee awoke him and a feint smile left his face. Pleasant dreams washed away by the real. He was king, it was still raining, and the tigers where calling his name.  
As they walked the stretch to the main ledge he scanned the looks on his pride's faces. Fatalistic determination. Simba walked down the path from the main ledge. It was odd, the walls of that familiar place. It was like he had never seen them before. Even in the dismal rain it was beautiful place.  
The path no ended with the river. On the other side Aride sat waiting.  
" What do you want?" Simba yelled across the roar of the water.  
" Alternatives to your deaths" Aride answered. Simba scanned the looks on the tigers faces and it the same as his lionesses.  
" You could leave." He said.  
" I could let you do the same." the tiger king replied. The expression on both their faces was an obvious no.  
" This war is done Simba." Aride said. Simba smiled.  
" No it isn't...not yet. We get to die bravely remember." he said. The two kings stared at each other, lionesses and tiger behind them nervous.  
" ...Are we done then?" Simba asked. " Its raining you know." Aride was utterly void of expression.  
" Another option then." Aride said.  
" What's that?"  
" I'll make a pact with you. We'll fight just me and you. The winner...the survivor takes all and settles this. Between my army and your pride he makes one kingdom and rules it justly for both sides." Simba laughed.  
" This is a kingdom of lions! What makes you think my pride would live with your tigers?"  
" I could let you die Simba."  
" How could we possibly trust each other..."  
" We just would."  
Simba searched for a clue as to his intentions in the tigers face. He revealed nothing, Why would he do this. He had this war won. He knew it.  
"Where?"  
" I am willing to come their. I will come alone providing you send you lionesses to the paths so my army can see them. We will fight on your ledge their where both can watch." Simba missed Aride's glance just for a moment changing to Yalee standing behind him.  
" If I won your tigers would obey me?"  
" Most, the rest have sworn to me that they will leave your land in the event that I lose."  
" That's a lot of trust."  
" I could let you die Simba...We could be good warriors. We could end this bravely, We could fight tooth and claw to the end Simba,...Or we could be good kings, and end this war fairly...for both our kingdoms. At the price of just one of our lives. "  
This time Simba noticed Aride's glance at Yalee.  
" When?"  
"Dawn tomorrow. A day to prepare for death."  
" All right." Simba agreed. A murmur went up among both ranks.  
" My Hunters caught an excess this morning. They have provided three antelope for you outside your south entrance. They will leave them on the bank send three lionesses and they will back away untill they've got them across. I assume that will carry your pride through the day."  
Simba started to say thank you but stopped himself, deciding instead to simply nod.

The pride spent the day in a strange mood. On the boarder of both depression and celebration. The food was secured as Aride had promised and they feasted. Worried mothers watched happily as their hungry children ate. It was pleasant if is depressingly so to quantify the end. To know that tomorrow for better or worse it would be over and they would know their fates.  
Simba sat on a high rock looking out towards the west. What little light their was he could see fading behind the distant tree line of that dark wood. Even now he didn't feel much like a king. From he concealed perch he had heard many conversations that had not been meant to reach his ears. Beneath him he saw Yalee slip across the main ledge. She looked around and apparently not noticing him where he sat, vanished down the path. He first though was to ask her but he abandoned it, running a paw wearily through his mane. To be honest he didn't want to know. He looked up at the gray night devoid of stars. His father would have prayed.

Yalee was led through the tiger armies ranks. Lounging warriors cast her all manner of expressions from curiosity to disdain. She was led up and over a rise to a small crevice that had been covered with a grass rook so that Airde could sleep sheltered from the rain. Her guards stopped short meet by Aride's and they argued with aids for a few minutes. Apparently disturbing him was a chore no one wanted. She tried to tell them she go alone but was told angrily by all to be silent. Finally an aid agreed to take her. He lead entering first. They ducked the grass roof, drooping from the waters weight, entering the small shelter barely fitting the three of them. Aride sat against the back , sitting up but with his eyes shut.  
" Sir..." The claws on Arides paw flexed and the aid stumbled over his words.  
" She surrendered herself to the front line...demanded to speak with you... I told them you where busy."  
" Leave us." Aride instructed and the Aid bolted past her and out of the little shelter."  
Aride exhaled slowly and Yalee could almost feel a chill. Whether it was real or imagined she couldn't tell. His eyes opened...it taking him a few seconds to focus on her. His mind had apparently been far away. Yalee felt a knot turn in her stomach and was suddenly very nervous.  
" Simba send you?" He asked. She felt the knot tighten.  
" He send you to spy on me? Wants to know why I'm doing this?" She didn't answer.  
" Maybe he sent you to kill me? Thought a single lionesses might get past my..." She hit him in the face as hard as she could. He fell back stunned. She almost choked realizing what she'd done. Looking down at her hurting paw. Aride shook off the impact sitting back up. His expression told her nothing.  
"...I'm sorry" She started frightened.  
" Its all right." He replied rubbing his muzzle. " To be honest I don't know If I would have believed anything else...let me try again, Why are you here Yalee? "  
" You going to fight tomorrow, you could die...I wanted to see you again." Yalee said  
" So could Simba, shouldn't you be helping him?" She could feel the cold in him, rising up.  
" Simba has a whole pride of lionesses to offer him anything he needs. Who do you have?" Yalee said, letting herself smile. Watching the storm in his eyes.  
" What do believe I am Yalee? If your thinking that I'm really some good person because I can be kind, you can stop. I've done more evil things in the name of my so called convictions, then I can remember. The brutal warrior is every bit as real as the person I was before." He pleaded with her. She reached out and touched her paw to his chest. A frozen wind blew by her catching her breath...and she could see the small shelter as he saw it. The cold of the air, the rain replaced by snow falling to a frozen ground. His own personal winter raging around them. She could feel its anger. It didn't want her here  
" I believe...you've been cold and miserable for far too long." She pressed herself against him, rubbing her paw down his scarred back. "And I believe that I can make you warm again." He kissed her and she heard the death cry of the wind as the storm faded away.

Simba hadn't slept. Soon what light could breach the gray clouds would rise in the east. He stood and stretched. Today if the tigers kept their words, fate would be decided. He looked out as his kingdom, his home; it had a feel of eager expectance. It felt strangely good, the end. Regardless of how it turned out..."I'm ready for this to be over." he told himself.  
Yalee was awakened by the sound of scratching claws. Outside Aride sat in the rain methodically running his claws down a boulder, eyes shut, his mind far away. His warrior aids quietly painted symbols on his face with mud, and pigment whose origin she didn't want to know. She could feel it in the air, it was soon. She could still feel Aride's gentle touch on her body. She thought of Simba. A tear ran down her cheek. She felt a wave of guilt at her emotions.  
Walking out of the shelter into the rain she caught some evil looks from his warriors. She ran a paw down his shoulder.  
"Aride..."  
" Its all right." He stopped her. " I know this will be hard for you and I'm sorry, but Simba is your king. You've known him far longer then you've known me."  
"Maybe" she said licking his cheek, much to the disgust of his aids. " But I'll be waiting for you."  
He stopped sharpening his claws and smiled. With a motion he dismissed the others. When they where gone her turned to face her.  
" Then today I am invincible." Running his paw down her soft pelt. She waited for the guilt, but it was gone.  
" Now if you will excuse me, fate has plans for me this morning." Aride turned to face the rock, her home and let out a roar that shook her bones.

Part Nine, Battles

"It is time my friend."  
A smile came across his spotted face, his claw tapping against the boulder on which he sat.  
"That foolish bastard, its beautiful, Aride might as well have just given me this kingdom. He wants to be honorable and fight Simba let him. Then when he beats that lion into the ground, kill him then disappear. I'll claim that the lions breached the agreement and hired an assassin to kill our beloved leader. His army will be so upset they will follow me to the end and we'll crush them." Galee leaned back, "By tonight every lion will be dead, the lionesses who survive will be our slaves and you my friend will feast..." His guards exchanged smiles amongst each other.  
"Suppose Simba wins" The cheetah asked.  
"He's a lion..."  
" Just suppose then." The cheetah's amusement fading.  
"Then kill Simba instead, we crush them anyway." Galee said. "We have to go, I'm sure you'll want to prepare...or whatever it is you do."  
" Oh and Galee."  
" What..." The cheetah was suddenly so close he could see the shine on his perfectly white, sharp teeth.  
"Don't ever, ever call me your friend again."  
The tiger backed up and pushed on of his guards in front of him.  
"Just do your job." Galee ordered.

Aride crossed the river. Emerging he caught the eyes of many waiting lionesses, Every tiger on the shore watched carefully for any sign of betrayal. Like a tan and muddy sea they parted for him as he made his way up the path. To Simba, to end of all he had worked for.  
They met on the main ledge. The balcony of the kings of sun for as long as lions had walked the earth. Aride stopped about ten feet from Simba.  
" Anything you want to say first.: Aride asked  
" Nothing." Simba said. Aride nodded.  
"Then lets be done with this."  
They charged simultaneously and crashed into one other with a sound the crowd bellow could hear. Simba locked his front paws around Aride's head, keeping them close, hoping to eliminate the advantage of the tiger's superior strength. They wrestled for several minutes. Aride trying to throw Simba, and Simba trying to maintain his hold. Their legs finally got tangled and slipping on the wet stone they both fell. On the ground Aride was able to use his weight to better maneuver his lion opponent. Simba's locked paws got moved to far up and teeth sunk into his forearm. Aride biting down all the way to the bone in a single chomp. Simba roared to hide a scream and his lock was broke. Free Aride rolled to his feet, turning to bring a paw pashing down on Simba's back. Holding Simba down, with his free paw Aride began raining blows into Simba's face.  
Simba struggled get his paws where he could strike back, pressed chest down into the rock with Aride's weight standing on his back. After the first three blows the pain changed into a surreal numbness and he began to taste his own blood. He tried to time the attacks snapping at Aride's paws. Finally his teeth caught flesh, biting down he severally lacerated a toe. Aride snarled stumbling back Allowing Simba to stand. Blood running freely down the lions face from his nose, forehead and one of his ears. The two circled each other growling and cursing. Beneath them from their audience, tigers and lionesses, rose a steady chant of their names, respectively.

She watched a mother hawk circling high overhead, crying sadly.  
" How many lives have you destroyed?"  
He moved across the plains like an evening breeze. A yellow blur through the tall grass. Towards the rock. She could hear it beginning already a battle that would decide the fate of this land. Of course he would be drawn to it. It was said there would be a culmination of fates. All fates. Simba's, the tiger kings, the pale queen, even her...and him. Her dark figure vanished into the sea of grass. Like him drawn to the end.

Yalee heard an argument outside the shelter and the sound of a fight. She rose form the straw bed and turning to the entrance was stuck in the face knocking her back down. Outside the two guards Aride had left her died to five Aloss warriors and the warlord Galee entered the small shelter to stand over her.  
"Even his enemies are not immune to his charms. I must say what a great king Aride is. I'm sure he would have been a magnificent leader. Trying to stand she was again stuck down.  
"Aride's going to kill you." She snarled, wiping blood from her muzzle. Galee shook his head.  
"No...Aride isn't coming back."  
" Then Simba..."  
Again he shook his head.  
" You should have done what the cheetah told you bitch, it would have made this far less complicated."  
" You sent him?"  
" Yea, and he wont fail again I can assure you." The tiger pounced on her, pinning her painfully down to the ground. She cried out. The tiger licking her cheek as she struggled under him. He leaned forward so he could whisper in her ear.  
" ...You know that cheetah...Let me tell you about the cheetah, he's fucking fried. Always looks like he's starving to death. Want to know why? The only thing he eats is children under the age of two... Sick isn't it? I hire only the best psychopaths...guess what he wants when I get your pride." Yalee screamed, angry beyond comprehensible thought, straining every muscle in her back she still couldn't move the fat tiger.  
" ...Before I would have agreed with you lionesses. Murdering children always seemed a little excessive... but after meeting you...the ideas starting to grow on me. I may even join him when it comes to your two boys."  
" MOTHER FUCKING, BASTARD!" She yelled, spitting at him.  
"Of course you'll be allowed to watch...we'll just have some fun first while we wait, it wont be long now."

Simba moved quickly to one side and leapt trying to catch Aride in the shoulder. Dodging with a quick spin Aride caught him mid jump and directed him head first into a boulder instead. The impact stunned him. He felt Aride hit him again. He couldn't seem to find his balance. Shaking his head he struggled to regain his bearings, while feebly dodging blows. Below the tigers had droned out his lionesses, Arides name being pounded into his head.  
Through it all he suddenly could hear her voice. Nala...far away. In a language he didn't understand...why would I dream in a language I cant understand...He thought he felt the earth shake beneath him. It took him a second to realize that Aride must have felt it too. It had temporarily stopped his attack, confusion interrupting his momentum. Despite disorientation that simple part of the mind that wants only to live finally kicked in and brought Simba to his feet. Tackling his distracted enemy.

He watched the two cats fighting, having made his way to one of the high caves. His eyes closed, shifting back and forth, he sought out his center. Kings, and audience, he wanted this to be perfect, abstract, pure..."  
" Cavicare." Her voice behind him. His eyes opened, his paw begin tapping.  
" Exeteress" He said turning. "Tell me the lions actually did hire an assassin it would be beautiful."  
" I'm not here for them." She said her voice calm. He felt a wave of bored weariness wash over him.  
"It's predictable. Don't you see, it's boring. ...and I thought you had learned." He said  
" I can only pray they forgive me for that."  
" I let you live last time remember...provided this foolishness stopped."  
"To live only to survive is worse then to have died."  
He smirked annoyed. "What idiot convinced you of that...I let you live because I saw potential... I liked you."  
" You liked me!...Shut the fuck up! You murdered them." He body began to tremble in rage. Tears disappearing into black fur.  
"Stop blaming me for both their deaths bitch...I only wanted the boy, if you precious mate hadn't tried to stop..."  
"He was only two weeks old...YOU FUCKING ATE OUR SON, YOU LITTLE MONSTER!" All discipline broke down as she roared at him. He shook his head sadly.  
"...well then come on."  
She moved. A fluid motion, practiced every days for years. The perfection of the strike, denying the target any clue as to where it would hit until the end. She hit nothing but air. Just as she had years before. A blur stuck her in the temple and sent her sprawling across the cavern. Just as he had before, years of training for this moment...though oddly it was only now that she realize that this had been her goal. Yet nothing had changed...he was Cavicare, the killer of kings, his very name meant murder. Who was she? Still only an angry widow. Snarling she got up.

Galee shifted on top of her, moving so he could run his paw down her exposed belly. His other paw wrapped around her chest to hold her down. His claw painfully traced the long scars that ran the length of her underside, to meet between her back legs.  
" Hmm interesting...Null? Void?...Heard they came this way, Giants like them, must have had fun with a little thing you."  
" They died horrible deaths...Nala buried them, they screamed like little tigresses for weeks." Yalee hissed.  
Angrily he grabbed her throat, choking her.  
" They where friends of mine you whore!"  
" ...I look forward to you joining them." His weight no longer completely on her a last burst of energy freed her from his repulsive touch. She scrambled to her feed and backed up to the wall, but the tiger was still between her and the exit. He laughed at her.  
" Where are you going? This whole land is mine now...Simba and Aride are dead. I'm in charge now, might as well cooperate and I'll make it enjoyable for you."  
She swung at him, her claws marring his chest. His blow knocked her head into the stone wall with a sickening sound. She could feel blood running down her fur from somewhere. A deafening ringing in her ears. The thought of the degradations it would bring, kept her from losing consciousness. His paw wrapped itself around her throat and he drug back out into the middle of the room.  
" You want it like that, that's fine. I can do that for you. I've an army of three hundred plus tigers now. How many rapes do you think you can take before it kills you?" He yelled. He hit her in a face few times for good measure. When she stopped squirming he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her hips up to meet his. As he prepared to hump her, she suddenly came to life under him. A sudden surge of strength, broke his hold on her as she spun around. Swiped at him she let out an infuriated, high pitched screech,. Not particularly strong but accurate, her blow neatly castrated the exposed tiger. Galee made no sound, simply slumping to the ground holding himself, his face a picture of complete agony. Yalee crawled as far away from him as she get in the small shelter. It wouldn't take him long to bleed to death.  
"Go fuck yourself pig!" She didn't know if he heard her, didn't really care.

The gathered lionesses felt the first tremor, the rock face vibrating under their paws.

Aride smashed his forehead into Simba's muzzle. The lion trying to bite him, recoiled off. Still on his Back He kicked the lions front legs out from under him, as he stood again. The second tremor shook the ground beneath him. Simba watched a multi ton boulder roll past him, missing his head by feet. Promptly he scrambled up. He and Aride looked at each other and then at the ledge around them. Boulders from higher ledges where crashing down onto the main ledge. Only to roll of it and fall farther down. Tiny cracks began to form in the stone.

Lionesses struggled to cross the river. Tigers, panicked fought to flee the western shadow of the rock. Far beneath the ground an invasion of slowly trickling water had run its course, earth long firm foundation turned into mud, rock began to shift with the current.

The room in which they fought shifted violently. Scrambling to find a hold in the rock, Exeteress slid across the floor and into the wall, wall and floor then changing positions. He didn't care. The cheetah was moving fast enough to stand on the now vertical floor anyway and when he finally decided to come down. He landed on her, knocking the air violently from her lungs. He sat on her a moment the horrible arrogant face smiling down at her. When she had enough energy to try again he dodged her bite by simply stepping off of her; her charge dodged by a series of sidesteps. A backhanded paw struck her nose as he again become a blur in front of her. It was undeniably beautiful, the perfection of the art of killing.

An entire ledge fell from somewhere above parting the stone on which they stood like water. Aride dove for a nearby cave entrance; Simba went the other way vanishing into a cloud of mud and dust.  
"Shit!"  
He dodged another boulder. Cracks began to form in the cave wall, so he left, leaping a gap to stand on a piece of the shattered main ledge. " Shit, shit, shit." He complained.

Exeteress swung again still hitting nothing. A paw stepped down on the back of one of her knee  
Collapsing that leg. Her head falling with her body a spotted paw moving up caught her chin, the force flipping her entirely over. Her body went numb and she felt the oblivion.  
" Hi."  
She looked down to see a little lioness cub sitting beside her.  
" Hello." She replied a little confused. In front of her she could watch the cheetah still hitting her lifeless body.  
" What's your name?" The cub asked her.  
" I'm called Exeteress" she answered. The cub smiled at her.  
" Your supposed to kill him."  
" I can't he's better then me." she replied.  
" So much pain you've been forced to endure, but today you can give it meaning."  
" He's too fast."  
The lioness patted her as a adult would to comfort a child.  
" Watch his paw. A rhythm that haunts him. It represents his fear. That's his weakness."

Aride found Simba balancing on a boulder about ten feet bellow his own perch. The lion hadn't noticed him yet, a leap from this height, with his weight probably coordinated should break most of the bones in Simba's body. Quietly he hunkered down close to the stone, tensing preparing to leap. The wind howled around him, the snow fell upon his fur. He pain of frostbite on his paws. Simba had become his snow hare. So close to an end. A sound, feint against the crashing of the rock caught his ear. Mentally he told it to go away but it wouldn't. Refusing to be ignored it persisted. The hare was never meant to be caught. Before he admitted to himself he was going his paws had already changed directions.  
"Dam lionesses." He said. She had done this to him. He would have, could have, should have, just won this war, but she'd weakened him somehow. "Dam lionesses!"

The walls coming down around her Jihala was trying in vain to get the terrified cubs together into a manageable horde. She had never been as good at controlling them as Yalee. Yalee wouldn't even still be here she scolded herself. She screamed as the tiger skid in the entrance. As he came towards her she hit him in the face, bracing to fight. He ignored the blow, quickly grabbing several of the cubs.  
"We need to get you out of here." Aride instructed calmly, narrowly dodging a piece of falling stone that once had been a part of the caverns ceiling. Surprised but not arguing she nodded and grabbed as many as she could. He grabbed two more in his mouth, and led them out onto the disintegrating paths.

A blow to her stomach brought Exeteress back to her body. She rolled away. He allowed her time to stand again, enjoying himself despite the increasingly dangerous environment. Shifting back and forth he stuck her in the face. She knew she didn't have very long. He was fickle and soon he would grow bored and finish it. She forced her concentration on his front feet, visible only between movements. When he struck they disappeared into a yellow haze she had no hope of blocking or dodging.  
The second strike she saw it. The slightest flinches, a neurotic tap of his pivot foot before he moved.  
The third blow she confirmed it, ignoring the amputation of her left eye, blood pouring down her face.  
On the fourth tap she moved. Even knowing his direction and moving first his blow still hit, destroying one of her ears...but she reached him and her jaws closed. Biting down into a spotted wind which became the little cats throat. He convulsed, panicked, his paws still free exploded into a wave of strikes at any part of her anatomy they could reach. The velocity of his struggle threw them both to the floor. She locked her jaws and blocked the world out, putting her self somewhere else as it's blows destroyed her body. His front claws raked her face and neck, his back paws a blur of kicks to her abdomen.  
His breath frightened and erratic, she could feel was becoming unstable, slowly failing. The spotted demon gurgling, mad ravings of his superiority. He continued to strike for several minutes after his last breath, his momentum carrying him on even past death.

Shifting in the mud like a poorly planned sand castle, pride rock tipped over. Beginning it's descent into the river and its mud. As if the earth itself was swallowing it. Lioness and tiger alike scrambled madly to get out of its way.

Jihala had jumped down to a lower section, and Aride tossed her the cubs as gently as such a thing could be done. As the last of them was thrown to her she felt the third tremor, and could see the mud begging to rise as her home turned on its side. She glanced up to find the tiger king gone.  
"Thank you." she said, and without hesitation she led them down the path.

Shrapnel falling like rain Aride wandered the disintegrating paths looking for Simba. The fourth tremor shook pride rock and knocked him off his feet. From an overhang a shower of rocks rained down on him. A sharp rock broke clear of the wall, and struck his shoulder ripping a long gash, pain shooting down his leg. Should have killed the lion. All around him the rock was collapsing, dust and stone settling over him. Looking up he found Simba standing over him. His energy spent, he shifted himself so as to look as dignified as he could.  
Aride spoke before Simba had a chance "I'm done Simba, all you have to do is end it." He raised his chin slightly, providing an easy access to his throat.  
"Would you have kept your word, had you won?" Simba bleeding from many wounds himself, asked the prone king of the tigers.  
"I would have tried." Aride answered hoping it was an honest.  
"I believe you." Simba said.  
"That's why your going to get up."  
" huh?"  
"You're going to get up. I don't care how hurt you are, and your going to tell them you killed me."  
"Why?"  
" Same reason you challenged me to this fight in the first place, when you could have let us starve. Same reason you helped those lion cubs when you should have killed me...You're a better king then me...That and look at this!" Simba said looking around him "This is ridicules... I'm sick of this shit!"  
"What will you do?" Aride asked. Simba laughed side stepping a falling rock bigger then him.  
"What ever I fucking want."  
Aride groaning, forced himself back on to his paws  
" You'll keep your word." Simba demanded  
" I will do my best too." Aride said. Simba nodded solemnly.  
" It won't be easy, a tiger ruling lionesses...Your going to need help I imagine. You should ask Yalee, she's been practically running this place for me anyway."

Aride smiled. "I might do that."  
The fifth tremor rumbled beneath their feet.  
"If we don't get out of here none of this is going to matter." Aride said, a crack forming under his paws.  
They nodded respectively to each other and headed off in opposite directions.

Exeteress held the corpse in her teeth for a long time, making absolute certain it was dead. When at last life was impossible, she crawled off him. Not making it but a few feet before she had to stop again, collapsing on the floor next to him. She didn't bother to check her injuries, the wounds where fatal many times over. Arteries had been cut in her neck. Her chest and stomach where riddled with deep cuts. Black and red blood pooled around her. She looked over at him. It was no longer a monster. His spirit gone, the viciousness left had him. He resembled now a skinny frightened cub. For all the evil he'd done she couldn't hate him any more. It was too much of a burden truly hating someone. Her revenge was done and she was very tired. The room around her was falling. The cold water begging to enter the cavern as it sunk into the river. Soon the mud would bury them, no one knowing where they had died. With the exception of maybe Nala no one would care.  
"Come on." The lionesses cub said.  
"Our family's are waiting for us."

Part Ten, The end of the world.

Aride emerged from the muddy waters to cheers, his tigers chanting the name of their returning champion. He tried to hide the fact that he could barely walk. All around lionesses bowed their heads in mourning for their fallen, as their home vanished into the river, descending, the end of the world. Yalee emerged from the gathered masses and beat any of his aids to his side. She had been hurt, he would ask how and why later. Her face was a look combining joy and sorrow. His muddy paw wrapped around her, marring her pelt with dirt and he kissed her. She ran her paw down his back, tears forming in her eyes. Aride turned to the masses, his subjects.  
"As I had promised, we will build a fair kingdom here!" he announced to all.

The river Kaeit flowing its way west, washed through the western woods on its way to devour the house of storm as it had the house of sun. It had made Raffiki's tree into an island. He was drawn there. Somehow he knew she'd be there. She watched him coming down the path. Muddy and bleeding. A bad limp, one eye begging to swell shut. Nala made her way from the dark of her perch. Trying to restrain her relief, she still rushed to his side.  
"Simba..."  
Seeing her he smiled, the giddy joyous look of a petulant cub in his face.  
" ...I'm glad your alive...but you still shouldn't be here." Nala said, fighting to maintain her cold discipline, She let her paw touch him wiping the mud form his face. He ran his paw down her pale pelt, like in so many dreams.  
"Cant you see it? it's the end of the world, my love." He said meeting her perfect green eyes.  
"Simba...we."  
" Where dead...both of us now, fate can't command us any more." Nala's mind tried to form arguments. Her body pressed itself against him.  
"Simba it wont change anything...I'll still.."  
He kissed her and she let him, wrapping her paws around him in a tight embrace they both fell to the ground.  
"Today I survived dying, watched my kingdom fall, became a commoner and named a new king, all to see my wife again. Don't bother me with such small things."  
Nala gave up  
"I love you." She said.  
Paws embracing each other they fell to the wet grass. In the rain, they made love on the grass. Like two young lovers had long ago. Tonight they had no concerns.

Part eleven, Roam

The pride lands were never again ruled from pride rock. It would be forgotten, lost beneath the earth. Tigers and Lionesses made their new home a little to the east. Along a rolling hillside riddled with caves. There they had a beautiful view of the river Kaeit, no longer angry, flowing gently to the west, which was no longer a dark place.  
Aride watched the sunrise from his cave's entrance on the highest hill. His lionesses queen and his two adopted sons still asleep behind him. He shut his eyes, breathing in the coming day. He loved dawn. Not so much the sight, but the feel of it, the warmth of day upon his pelt and skin. The storm was gone, back to those mountains where he had found it. The cold was gone from his gray eyes. Yalee came to his side, gently licking his cheek. Her paw stroked across his fur, his body now warm to the touch.  
"The boys are sound asleep, will be for hours...come back to bed." She whispered in his ear.  
He smiled and followed her back inside

Nala held their new born son in her arms. Simba sitting attentively next to her. Gently he reached out to touch his cub, barely able to believe it. His paw able to encompass its whole body.  
" Are you all right." he asked her.  
" I'm fine" She sat up so she could kiss him.  
" He's beautiful." Simba said, amazed.  
" handsome" She corrected smiling. " What shall we name him." She asked. Simba though about it for a while.  
" He's free...No kingdom to rule, no pre determined fate to dictate his life. Our son will be able to live the way he wants, love he who wants, go where he wants...I say we name him Roam.  
"I like it" Nala said brushing the fur from the cubs eyes still closed. "He shall be Roam who his free to wander."

And so ended the tiger lion war.

**THE END**

Authors ramblings -  
LOL this has become a large project! My first write up of this story was ten pages long and that included both the legend of the white lion and the legend of the tiger lion wars. From then on the project kept growing till now the two stories combined are over a hundred pages long. Anyway I've been very pleased to find most people have enjoyed reading the Legend of the white lion and I hope this was a satisfactory sequel. I am in the process of writing a prequel which will fill in a lot of the background story that I've created writing these two. So the project continues! In fact I'm begging to wonder if I'll ever finish it...Thanks for reading and good luck with your own projects.


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